The Big Island Hawaii - Part 6

We finally made it to Volcanoes National Park!! This was the one thing that we had to do when we came to Hawaii - mark another National Park off of our list!  It was a beautiful day to be there. Our first stop is always the visitors center where we get great information on what to try and do with kids. We saw a movie and read about the volcanoes. The kids completed a junior ranger activity and each got a badge and poster. After that, we headed to the sulphur banks and steam vents.

You could see the sulphur around some of the steam vents where it looked kind of yellowish.

Photo op

Here you can see the steam rising from a vent. The smell of sulphur was also pretty strong in this area.

Stop for a few pictures...

Caution!!

The hike through the sulphur banks and steam vents took us to the Crater Rim trail. There, we finally could see Kilauea

We of course stopped for lots of pictures.

Then we headed to the Jagger museum to learn more about volcanoes.

After that, we had some lunch and then went to the Thurston Lava tube. Here you actually got to hike through a lava tube which was pretty cool (kind of like a mini cave).

After that, we drove down the Chain of Craters road and stopped to do some hiking out on the old lava fields. I wish we had more time to spend here and do more hiking. Next time we come!! 

And of course, we had to make a stop at the sign or else it just wouldn't have counted!

That day we were supposed to take an evening hike out to the actual lava flow, but the lava stopped flowing just before we arrived in Hawaii (major bummer). That totally changed our plans and so we never got to see the Volcano at night either. We definitely want to come back and do more here!