"I Just Wanna Feel Some Sunshine" - Aulani May 2024 - Updated 5/31 Chain of Craters Road, Black Sand Beach (Big Island)

[Dis_Yoda]

Jurassic Adventure Tour Continued


This stop is also the same at the Movie Tour we took 8 years ago and it was raining more. We got silly with our photo with the Jurassic Park log.






After these stops, our next locations we would stop at would be unique to the Jurassic Adventure Tour. Unfortunately, it kept raining, especially hard, as we got to the Gyro sphere Station so I ended up with no decent photos of anything but the waterfalls that were starting to form along the mountains.




Our driver talked about how productions film here on site. Usually they work around the tours going on as if they want to rent the entire place out – they have to pay for every single seat on every single tour and pay all tour wages. The only movie that has done was Windtalkers on the days they were planning on using explosives.



The fourth stop was at the Jurassic World Entrance to visit some raptors and get in a cage with them.






Afterwards, we took about a 20-minute drive towards the Hakipu’u Valley to visit the Indominus Rex paddock. While on this drive, we saw some original Hawaiian housing that is being used for an upcoming TV Mini Series – Chief of War - with Jason Momoa and the bone yard from Kong.





We also saw the single Longhorn on the ranch & her new baby.




Also, it was interesting seeing how there’s actually spots around here that the new iPhone SOS feature doesn’t work for.

​

 

[Dis_Yoda]

Jurassic Adventure Tour Continued

Our drive continued to Hakipu'u Valley











Apparently Chris Pratt is one of the few people allowed to fish at the ranch in their lakes at any time. He was well liked among the staff.

Eventually, we arrived to the Indominus Rex Paddock









One thing we noted while looking at the sites, Kualua Ranch doesn't maintain the sets and lets them go back to nature eventually. The sets are made with Hollywood Magic (aka cheaply) unless its a true safety issue. We noted this especially as we headed to the observation deck of the paddock.

​

 

[Dis_Yoda]

Jurassic Adventure Tour - Conclusion

Up at the observation deck, we enjoyed the signage.





We were happy the rain had finally stopped. You can see my progression of how soaking this morning's adventure had been.









We loaded back onto the vehicle and made our way back to the main visitor area of the ranch.

Along the way back, we saw more cows.





There also was a portion of the traditional boundary markers for the Ahupua'a (the Hawaiian term for traditional subdivisions of land)
​

 

[franandaj]

Unfortunately, it kept raining, especially hard, as we got to the Gyro sphere Station so I ended up with no decent photos of anything but the waterfalls that were starting to form along the mountains.

Ugh, that's one of the things you can expect in Hawaii, lots of rain.

Usually they work around the tours going on as if they want to rent the entire place out – they have to pay for every single seat on every single tour and pay all tour wages.

That's a LOT of money!

Our drive continued to Hakipu'u Valley

That's really beautiful!

 

[alohamom]

Following along!

 

[jedijill]

That tour sounds really good...I wasn't sure if it would be hokey or not but I'm putting it on the potential to-do list!

Jill in CO

 

[Dis_Yoda]

Ugh, that's one of the things you can expect in Hawaii, lots of rain.

That's a LOT of money!


That's really beautiful!

Yeah - it was an unusually late in the season low pressure system that made sure we had lots of rain this week.

It is a lot of money! I can see why most movies don't go for that option.

Following along!

Welcome!!!

That tour sounds really good...I wasn't sure if it would be hokey or not but I'm putting it on the potential to-do list!

Jill in CO

If you are a fan of Jurassic Park, it is totally worth it. Less intensive than doing the UTV tours but the cost is more than just the basic movie tour. It's vacation though so what's a little extra splurge?

 

[Dis_Yoda]

Tropical Farms

We were hungry after our adventure but figured we could get a nice snack at Tropical Farms as we headed to Byodo Temple. Tropical Farms is a macadamia nut store where you can taste various flavors and get to crack your own nut as well. We got our sample cup of Kona Coffee as well and sampled most of the options of macadamia nuts they had. My favorite was the Maui Onion & Garlic flavor while my husband liked the sweeter versions. We bought a bag of macadamia nut and chocolate covered popcorn, the Maui onion nuts and I got myself a hibiscus fruit punch popsicle to enjoy on our way.










Once we were back in the car after the farm, I set our GPS to Byodo Temple and went driving down the highway. Well, when I was originally planning this trip, I didn’t really put the two and two together that it was Mother’s Day. There was a huge line heading into the Valley of the Temples that was slow moving. We looked around and saw families having picnics by the graves. We saw cars being turn around at the gate while others were going through. Based on the speed this all was happening, we decided to U-turn ourselves and go back to Aulani as it didn’t seem like visiting was a wise choice this day!​

 

[Dis_Yoda]

Noe

Back at the resort, I headed to the pool to enjoy a couple rounds of the lazy river before taking a nice soak in the tub and enjoying a short nap. We headed next door for dinner this evening at the Four Seasons. We had enjoyed Noe during our last trip and were hoping for a repeat performance. It met those expectations!



We were sat outside at a lovely table for 2 overlooking the gardens. My husband decided against us ordering a bottle of wine so I just went with a glass of Sauvignon Blanc to start while he had a glass of prosecco and looked over the menus and heard about the specials going on the evening. We both ended up deciding on specials for our entrees rather than off the main menu.




Focaccia Bread

I started with beef carpaccio which was a nicely smoked with a bearnaise sauce, pine nuts, and lemon zest. It was a nice light start to the meal.


House-Smoked Beef Carpaccio

For my main, I had the sweet pea ravioli with a white wine sauce. The insides were the right mix of ricotta and sweet peas so it wasn’t overly sweet like some spring pea dishes can be.


Chef’s Special Stuffed Pasta – Sweet Pea Ravioli

My husband had the other special – saffron risotto with king crab. He was shocked at the amount of meat that was included! The risotto was appropriately rich and he could only get through about half of it. I stole a few bites and enjoyed the flavors.


Chef’s Special – Saffron Risotto w/ King Crab

Halfway through my main, I had finished my wine so I went with the special cocktail of the evening. It was a vodka hibiscus spritzer and I was surprised when it came out with a chocolate covered strawberry. I put the strawberry to the side until it was time for dessert.


Mom’s Indulgence

As we ordered dessert, I went for a third drink and got a limoncello to do with our Olive Oil Cake. The olive oil cake was served with oranges and ice cream. It was a nice balance of flavors and felt like the perfect end to the meal.


Limoncello


Olive Oil Cake

We paid our bill and walked back to Aulani.​

 

[Dis_Yoda]

Stitch Time!

Back at the room, we got our backpack situated for the next day as we would be waking up at 3:30AM as we had a flight to the Big Island leaving at 6AM. I had another thing I had to handle this evening though as a few weeks prior, we ran Stitch’s 19.3 Mile Challenge at Springtime Surprise Weekend in Walt Disney World. Stitch was a good reason to get out of my RunDisney retirement and I brought that medal along for a photo session with Stitch & then Angel. As these meet & greets were later in the evening, they weren’t busy at all!














Afterwards, I headed back to the room and went to bed.​

 

[Dis_Yoda]

Travel To The Big Island

We were up at 3:30AM but this time it was on purpose. We had places to go and lava to see. Well, turns out, we probably could have slept another 30 minutes but what did we know? We were on the road within 20 minutes of waking up and heading to the Honolulu Airport where we parked and went into terminal 1 for inter-island travel on Hawaiian Airlines. We actually beat the TSA lines for opening though. Once they opened, we headed to our gate to wait for our 6AM flight to Hilo to board. When the Starbucks in terminal opened, I went and got a cold brew and a grilled cheese for breakfast and my husband got a Frappuccino.



Boarding was efficient and I noticed that this flight was mostly construction workers and a handful of tourists. Despite it being only a 30-minute flight, we got served POG Juice Cocktail (well it was 10% juice) which was nice.




The Hilo Airport is tiny. In no time, we were at the Avis counter to pick up our convertible. I will say this was waste of money. The car was not in the best condition (ripped fabric on the driver seat) and had almost 70K miles. I should have just done a cheaper SUV or sedan but who would have known?





Prior to this trip, I had downloaded the Shaka Guide and paid for the Big Island Tours. It was like $29.99 for all 5 tours of the island as we knew two of them would be helpful for us, especially with losing phone signal some places in the park. I started the South Island Epic Coastal Journey and set it to start where I was at as wasn’t worth it to find the official starting point. It was nice hearing about some of the options for stops (that we ignored) and history of the island. We did stop at a gas station to get some drinks and snack foods as we knew there would be an absolute lack of options for both at the park. This also helped make sure we didn’t snap at each other when we got hungry later. We continued down the highway until we reached our main reason for this excursion.


Hawaii Volcanoes National Park

We went to the Visitor Center’s to use the facilities and look at the information maps before heading back to the car, putting the top down, and stopping the South Island Epic Coastal Journey Tour and starting the Volcanoes National Park Tour.







My husband was really excited to hike near volcanos. We reached the Kilauea Iki Overlook and parked. This is where we would be doing a 4 mile hike into the crater and out.



​

 

[Dis_Yoda]

Kilauea Iki Crater Hike

For some more information about the Kilauea crater - here is the trail guide that goes over a lot of the history.

https://www.nps.gov/havo/planyourvisit/upload/kilauea-iki-trail-guide-2013.pdf

This formation was formed back in 1959 when lava began spewing along the walls of the crater and continued for about 5 weeks, including also erupting 1900 feet in the air. The crater used to be twice as deep as it is today.








As we descended into the crater, we were taking deep steps down the lava rocks along the Pu’u Pua’i which was where caused by molten rock sliding down the cone and gravity doing its thing.



Once on the crater floor, we were guided along the way with large ahu (piles of stones) to make sure we didn’t lose our way across the crater floor. We got to see lots of the ohi’a lehua trees which was the first trees that grow on lava flows.











The one problem with this hike is while getting down and going across the crater is great - you then have to get back up. I am so glad we started this hike at 8:30AM as the sun wasn’t terrible until towards the end. We were on the crater floor by 9AM and across the crater by 9:30AM. It did take us like an hour minutes to get up the crater where my husband also took this lovely photo of me where I was regretting choices. I was also very thankful for the Powerade and water we had gotten at the gas station prior to the driving to the park.

​

 

[Dis_Yoda]

Chain of Craters Road

I was very happy to be back in the car at the end and to restart the Shaka Guide tour. We put the top down so that we could enjoy the breeze.




One next stop was the Puhimau Crater which is a huge pit crater aka when a volcano collapses and leaves behind a giant hole.




Then we stopped at the Pauahi Crater which is another pit crater. We ran into people doing fun echo things along the boardwalk making the crater say hello back to them.




As we continued our drive, we stopped at the Muliwai A Pele which is a river of lava. It shows how the eruption flowed towards the ocean.













Its also interesting how you can see various stages of the land in the recovery process after lava has come through.​

 

[Dis_Yoda]

Holei Sea Arch

Chain of Craters roads ends at the Holei Sea Arch. This would be our next stopping point before taking the same road back up the to the visitor center. The Holei Sea Arch is an ancient lava tube that was sculpted by the sea. The road is closed here due to previous volcano activity.








At the end, we drove back north along the Chain of Craters. I was really tempted by the hike to the petroglyph fields but it was hot and it was now raining off and on. We went back to the Visitor’s Center to use the restroom and to get a couple small souvenirs.





​

 

[Dis_Yoda]

Punalu'u Black Sand Beach

We headed out of the park as our next destination was my non-negotiable on our visit to the Big Island - The Black Sand Beach!

We took about 45 minutes to drive to the Punalu’u Black Sand Beach.













What was also awesome was getting to see a Sea Turtle in one of the pools along the shore.



When we got back into the car, we were discussing what to do next – whether to drive to the Southern Most Point or something else. Well, my husband mentioned that he realized during the hike – the shoes he brought were not going to work well for the rest of the trip for his morning runs so he wanted to get new running shoes. I let him figure out where we were going as he was driving anyway.



My only thing was we needed food too. The mall he selected had a few restaurant options so I was looking at those while we headed back towards Hilo. At the mall though, turns out it was really outdated for the list. The two restaurants I wanted to enjoy didn’t exist anymore but I was approaching hangry status. This is how we ended up at a conveyor sushi place in a strip mall which may have been the worst sushi place I’ve ever been too. They were out of half of the options on the menu which I get as its an island. I ordered a shrimp tempura roll and my husband got edamame and french fries?!?! We got out of there for less than $20 so that may be the cheapest meal of the trip.



Fed with something, we headed back into the indoor mall where my husband found a new pair of running shoes and I also got an Auntie Anne’s pretzel that wasn’t even salted as they were out. It was now after 4PM and we had 4 hours until our flight back to Oahu. I was tired and over it all and so was my husband. I made the call to see if we could try to get on an earlier flight back to Oahu even if we had to pay for the flight. Turning in the car took no time and we headed to the check in counter at Hilo and I nicely asked if we could move to an earlier flight despite Hawaiian not doing same day standby like that according to their website. They were more than willing to help and we got us on the 5PM flight! So thankful for that.

We had to wait until the gate attendant assigned us seats but by 4:50PM, we were loading up the plane and it was only half full anyway.



The flight home was uneventful, at least until it became time to find our rental car in the garage. We took the elevator to the garage to Floor 4 and our car wasn’t where it was supposed to be. So, we went to Floor 5 and it also wasn’t there. Then Floor 6. Then Back to Floor 4. Something was wrong. We went back to departure level to see what we missed. Well, that made it made sense. We were at the wrong elevator point. We needed to go to the other side of Terminal 1 and magically when we went to Floor 4, the car was exactly where it was supposed to be. We had a laugh that we’re glad we came back early as if we were doing that adventure at 9:30PM, we probably would have snapped at each other.​

 

[Dis_Yoda]

The 'Olelo Room

We drove back to Aulani and got clean. Once settled, I recognized I was still hungry and I wanted real food not snacks we had in the room. My husband didn’t feel like leaving the room so I left him behind and went downstairs to the ‘Olelo Room.




Hotel & Hu’uanu – Fid Street Hawaiian Gin, Yuzu, Calpico, Topped with Soda

Once I was settled with my drink, the sky opened. While Hawaii does have frequent rain, it was in a really unusual weather pattern this week for this time a year. A really slow-moving low-pressure system that was moving stuff from west to east rather than the normal east coast short storms. I was so glad I was already seated as everyone outside came rushing in. People were standing and sharing the small tables inside to finish their stuff and pay and leave.



I ordered two items that would be hearty as I really hadn’t had enough food all day so I had the kid’s mac & cheese as my “side” and the steak bites. This was legit perfect. The steak was really tender and the sauce was a nice balance of sweet and spice. The mac & cheese was just comforting and warm. After all the walking we had done – it was a proper meal.


KŌNANE MAC AND CHEESE


STEAK BITES - Prime Beef, Pickled Onions and Peppers, Spicy Teriyaki Sauce, Fried Garlic Chips




I ordered another drink – it was a special type of Gin Fizz not on the menu. I also ordered my husband the sliders he had Saturday to go and I enjoyed my drink until it arrived. Back at the room, my husband was thankful for the food. Once he had unwound from the day, he also had realized it was hungry for filling food and those gushers we got from Costco on Saturday weren’t going to cut it. We set no alarm for the next day and went to bed.​

 

[Mom2m&k]

Enjoying your report! I don’t think I have ever seen a tempura shrimp roll quite like that before!

 

[franandaj]

We got our sample cup of Kona Coffee as well and sampled most of the options of macadamia nuts they had. My favorite was the Maui Onion & Garlic flavor while my husband liked the sweeter versions. We bought a bag of macadamia nut and chocolate covered popcorn, the Maui onion nuts and I got myself a hibiscus fruit punch popsicle to enjoy on our way.

I'm not sure if I'll put this one on the list. If Jill wants to, then great. I'm not a huge nut fan, although I have been known tobeat a chocolate covered Macadamia Nut before.

Based on the speed this all was happening, we decided to U-turn ourselves and go back to Aulani as it didn’t seem like visiting was a wise choice this day!

Good call!

I started with beef carpaccio which was a nicely smoked with a bearnaise sauce, pine nuts, and lemon zest. It was a nice light start to the meal.

That is an interesting presentation of Beef Carpaccio. I'm glad it was good.

My husband had the other special – saffron risotto with king crab.

His entree wins! That looks delicious.

I went with the special cocktail of the evening. It was a vodka hibiscus spritzer

That sounds very tasty! I like the Hibiscus juice when we were in Egypt.

Stitch was a good reason to get out of my RunDisney retirement and I brought that medal along for a photo session with Stitch & then Angel. As these meet & greets were later in the evening, they weren’t busy at all!

I'm glad you got out of retirement for Run Disney races. I could never do that.

We were on the road within 20 minutes of waking up and heading to the Honolulu Airport where we parked and went into terminal 1 for inter-island travel on Hawaiian Airlines. We actually beat the TSA lines for opening though.

That's good to know!

Despite it being only a 30-minute flight, we got served POG Juice Cocktail (well it was 10% juice) which was nice.

Nice!

We continued down the highway until we reached our main reason for this excursion.

Hawaii Volcanoes National Park

That is a great reason to fly to the Big Island.

My husband was really excited to hike near volcanos. We reached the Kilauea Iki Overlook and parked. This is where we would be doing a 4 mile hike into the crater and out.

You know, i think i did a very similar hike to that in 1980 something on my first trip to the big island. Since then I've only done the driving trip, which seems to have changed a whole lot since I did it later in the 80s. Especially since the island is a little bit longer on the South end since I was there!

I was very happy to be back in the car at the end and to restart the Shaka Guide tour.

Yeah, I don't blame you. When I did that hike, I think I was just barely in my 20's and still in pretty good shape and I know it kicked my butt. Now that I'm approaching 60 I know better about hikes!

This is how we ended up at a conveyor sushi place in a strip mall which may have been the worst sushi place I’ve ever been too.

I'm sorry.

That has got to be the worst shrimp tempura roll I've ever seen. It's not even a roll! (And Fran and I ordered that often since she couldn't eat raw fish due to her auto immune disorder.)

I was tired and over it all and so was my husband. I made the call to see if we could try to get on an earlier flight back to Oahu even if we had to pay for the flight.

Yeah, I totally get this!

We had to wait until the gate attendant assigned us seats but by 4:50PM, we were loading up the plane and it was only half full anyway.

So nice that this worked out for you1

We had a laugh that we’re glad we came back early as if we were doing that adventure at 9:30PM, we probably would have snapped at each other.

I laughed at this and then I cried a little bit. I would love to have had an adventure where we ended up getting cranky with each other, just to have another adventure again.

Once I was settled with my drink, the sky opened. While Hawaii does have frequent rain, it was in a really unusual weather pattern this week for this time a year. A really slow-moving low-pressure system that was moving stuff from west to east rather than the normal east coast short storms. I was so glad I was already seated as everyone outside came rushing in.

Don't you love it when you're the one who is in the right position at the right time?

I had the kid’s mac & cheese as my “side” and the steak bites. This was legit perfect.

Sounds like it! I never want all the food that they try to pawn off on you. This sounds just like what I would like to eat as well!

We set no alarm for the next day and went to bed.

That sounds like a great day!

As I am going to sleep after midnight with an alarm set for 6:30AM.....Ugh.