Hilo and Mauna Kea

Due to the gallons of wine that needed to be consumed last night this morning was a bit difficult one :D We were planning on getting up early and heading out to explore the island - well that did not quite go that easily :) Had a nice breakfast in town around 10 and started to drive to Waimea a bit before noon. Due to the slow morning we ended up making couple of stops on the way :)

The end goal was to get to Mauna Kea to see the sunset from the top. Figured to take a direct road from Waimea, but while looking for the falls we ended up heading towards Hilo - so why not go through the capital while we are heading this way already, we thought this is a good idea. We had heard that there is not much there to see, but we truly did not think that it is quite that run down and boring there. Found one Asian eating place that was decent enough and headed out quickly after having lunch - towards Mauna Kea.

Driving in the clouds towards Mauna Kea

Mauna Kea is the highest peak in Hawaii, the elevation is 4200m from the sea level, and on top of it is an observatory and some NASA telescopes. During clear skies it is very beautiful on top - can see the milky-way and the stars. Getting up to the top is quite a challenge though. The climb starts already on the highway, you get closer and closer towards the clouds and before you notice you are in the fog, climbing on and on.

Once off the highway there is an information point, I'm guessing at about 2500m in altitude, where one gets all the needed information about the observatory and the maps to get to the mountain top. All the cars heading up are stopping there. Amongst maps, there are numerous signs saying you must have a four wheeler to even try to get all the way up there... and it is all on your own risk - bold and clear.

Once we stopped at the information center the car was already making funny smells - probably the clutch was overheated :) It was a relief to notice that everyone's car was smelling the same way if not even more - so, we took the risk and got up there :)

That is how you get all the way up there :)

We were not very lucky with the weather. It was cloudy and raining. Well actually there was hail as it was just below freezing up there.

Observatory on top of Mauna Kea

Driving down went so much quicker :) Reached Kailua-Kona in the darkness about 1.5 hours later.

Starting the drive back down from Mauna Kea

This is my last day here so rest of the evening went for packing my bags :D