…after that “high” day, it may be difficult to top that, but these top you cannot force, they just happen. What’s the first thing you do on Hawai’l ? Checking in the morning the daily lava flow update! Are there any new flow or direction? Luckily for the inhabitants of Pahoa, not. Sadly for me, because i have no chance to see any lava flow but this doesn’t bother me. That’s nature – unpredictable. Maybe i will find time to animate the lava flow for the time i stayed here, So what’s on the todo list for today? Take a tour around Big Island, because having a car makes that comfortable. Also in the car with me, Quin, an Asian/American girl from California which also stays in a tent. We started in Hilo and drove counter clockwise around the island. On the junction from our Hostel and main road, there was an lady sitting and waiting for the bus (you have to know that public transportation on this island is bad) , we asked where she needs to go an and we offered her an ride to her destination, Honomu. She told us to take an small detour, on the Pepe’ekeo Drv. because it’s worth so we could see more of the nature there. As soon we had dropped her, it started being cloudy, fogy and windy, which leaded us to head on north without any stop till Hawi where it began to clear. All the way to Hawi, Quin was telling strange stories about aliens, that they live in the U.S. (only few) because they ship was crashed (Roswell) and now they cannot go back. We cannot recognise them, because they can change their looking and have taken human shape to hide them. The government know this, but hides this, but Canada knows this and has it published some where. This story was followed buy an other which Indiana Jones / George Lucas couldn’t tell better. About that Nepal has an secret door to an different world, which can be accessed through an gate which the monks are protecting. Even Hitler and his SS was on the search to this gate. Additional there is and an huge stone which can reflect your future, which is locked by the Chinese Military, because a former young Chinese soldier looked at this stone and saw him self as an future general of this area. Years later he becomes a general and they have locked the area of the stone, so that no one else can look in this stone anymore and cause any problems to current general in this area. DWiSK. This story made the more boring drive through fog and less interesting nature more enjoyable. Arrived at the end of the road near Makapala we snatched a short preview of one of the beautiful valleys, Pololu Valley, on this side of island. We didn’t hiked down there, because our mission was to circle the island. The most famous of these valleys, is the Waipi’o Valley, but sadly i hadn’t enough time on this island to hike there. 1 1/2 weeks was to short ;-). Continuing our travel around the island we passed the very dry north and north-west which was mostly cover by dry grass land, lots of old lava flows and less interesting sights which would be an stop worth. If we would have stopped on each minor sight, we wouldn’t have done the 230 miles drip around in one day. Driving through all this old lava streams we saw an preserved idyllic spot which was skipped by the lava, the Makalawena Beach, so we drove down the rocky, rumple and bumble road and took a short rest there. The only bad thing that disturbed the beauty, where the approaching airplanes to Kona airport. This reminded me more to Bora Bora Beach at Ibiza, where people cheered as approaching airplanes in low level headed above the beach, bound to Ibiza and it’s party folk. Following the suggestions of the Lonley Planet guide, we drove through Kona and recognised that his side of island is the tourist side, with lots of these hotel parks and very expensive cottages. Anyways, White (Magic) Sands Beach was our destination, which name sounds very impressive, but as soon as we reached the beach, i already knowd why the had written “magic” in brackets. Magic? Maybe it was magic decades before and even the word “white” could be now placed in these braces. White Sands? I have seen more magic and white sands in Thailand 😉 Based on the experience of this side of island and due to the fact that we had started at 11am, we skipped more sights/stops to arrive at home not too late. In the meantime i started to look at my gas level and my board computers prognostic distance i can drive. 130 miles, passing an street sign which said 90 miles to Volcano, let me thinking that this is enough and we can reach the next gas station without any problems. South Kona started to be more nice again, because the touristy party was behind us and nature started being beautiful again as we now headed back to the more wet side of the island. One of our last sights on our todo lists was the Green Sands Beach in the south, the most southern point in the U.S. but reading the LP Guide we mentioned an long hike which didn’t fit in our time schedule, so i skipped it and saved it for an other trip. Checking gas level? Done! 40 miles till Volcaone and the board computer said 60 miles. I remembered now, that BC’s aren’t that accurate when the gas level reaches the minimum. Ascending now the highway, which leads us back to the Volcano National Park and home, the BC made these strange suggestions about the estimated distance. 50 miles…40 miles…30 miles..20 miles…blink blink blink, empty! What? I just drove about 10 miles. I hate these board computers. As it started blinking and the 20 miles wasn’t displayed anymore the destination to Volcano and the needed gas station was 25 miles. Oh no! Please let me drive up to crater, because after that it is only descending. I reduced the speed by from 55 to 45 mph to save some fuel and we started praying stronger. Yay, we reached the top and from then we floated the volcano downwards to the gas station. It was already getting dark as we have reached the gas station. From now it’s only a stone’s throw away to get back to Hilo. It was worth doing the trip around, to see the different faces of the Island. I actually prefer the wet and calm side with less of these luxury mass tourism…(2014/12/10)