Walking at night over crunchy cooled lava, trying not to fall and hurt myself on the sharp and uneven ground built up the excitement of reaching a great spot to photograph the 1100C (2012F) lava from Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano pouring into the Pacific Ocean.

It was beautiful sight but made me think about how close we are to the lava and near where we were standing the earth’s crust was very thin which made me feel slightly vulnerable.  I knew the earth was alive. We were in the hands of Pele, the Fire Goddess

I’ve always wanted to be able to photograph lava, the colour is fantastic and as I was in Hawaii visiting other islands I thought it was a fantastic opportunity to fly over to the Big Island and see the lava and other sights for a long weekend.  The first night I went out with a photography tour company Extreme Exposure. I got picked up at about 1am, our group bought some snacks and water for the trip and headed to the coast.  We parked at Kalapana and walked for an hour and a half from across the cooled lava, which about nine months earlier was bright orange and heading to the ocean.

We arrived at our viewpoint which while it was still a long way from the lava, but I was prepared with camera lenses, so I was fine.

We were shooting for a while in the dark which gave the lava a wonderful eerie look to it, and then as the sun was rising over the Pacific the colours changed and with slow shutter speeds, wonderful shots could be taken of the waves splashing against the lava causing masses of steam and the lava cooling and solidifying.

See the video below:

As the sun came up I could see the shapes of the cooled lava were visible, they looked like blobs heading away from the volcano to the sea. Looking closely at the lava revealed many beautiful colours and gave the cooled lava a new personality.

A helicopter flight was a wonderful experience to see everything from above and see the trees that missed being destroyed by the lava.  Swirls of lava were able to be seen around the vents in the ground and seeing the spot where the lava was flowing into the ocean and the steam rising from the water.

One of the other great things to do on the Big Island is a trip is to watch the sunset from the top of the highest mountain in Hawaii, Mauna Kea, which is 4,207 m (13,802 ft) high. It is not warm up there so plan ahead but has a fantastic view of Haleakalā on the island of Maui approximately 78 mi (126 km) away, somewhere I had been two weeks before.

There are twelve observatories housing thirteen telescopes at or around the summit and from the summit. If you are not lucky enough to able to get into one of those, the tour groups do star gazing half way down and tell you ancient Hawaiian legends of Māui, a demi-god of Polynesia.

Many people go to Hawaii for a beach holiday, but popping over to the Big Island for a long weekend is worthwhile. The fares are not expensive and there are not many places in the world where you can see lava, if you are lucky enough for it to be flowing into the ocean when you go.

View from Manua Kea and the observatories.