{Hawaii Day 5}

We woke up early and flew over to the Big Island. After we arrived and got our rental car we went to a really good place for breakfast. Then we drove to the Hawaii Volcano National Park. It was really neat, and we hiked to a few good spots to see the active volcano's.



We drove to a different location where we were able to walk through a large lava tube where hundreds of years ago lava flowed through.





After lunch we drove to a different airport where we took off on a helicopter for an hour ride to see the island from a different view.

It was fun to see the many waterfalls, lush landscaping, and ocean shore but our favorite part was flying over active volcano flows. I didn't realize that lava was actually still flowing above ground on the island. This picture below is an area that used to be a small community of homes until in the 90's they were ruined by lava flow.


The steam in the picture below makes it difficult to see, but there was actually a huge amount of lava flowing into the ocean in this spot, slowing making the island bigger.

After we were back on land, we went on a few short hikes in the part of the island that is a rainforest. It was gorgeous!! I couldn't believe how dense and green it was.

We saw some beautiful waterfalls.

The beaches (at least on the parts of the island we saw) were so different than Oahu's. They were very rocky, and hard to get to since most of the island ends in cliffs, not sandy beaches.