Our friends who we stayed with have an acre in the Puna district south of Hilo. The land here is hard to describe as it varies a lot. It's kind of a coastal plateau on old lava. It's no longer jungle like it is above Hilo but is still quite lush in places. Or it can be kind of scrubby resembling areas of shore pine on the Oregon coast only with tropical trees.

We visited some people who have a very lush place less than a mile from the ocean with every kind of tropical fruit. The guy makes beautiful ukuleles with intricate perl inlays. Check them out at Moore Bettah Ukuleles

From here we went to the coast to look for the warm pools and tide pools. We couldn't find the warm pools which was okay as we were plenty hot. We found the tide pools which were pretty cool. It's a bed of lava rock with pools all through it. The pools have coral and lot's of fish. We only had my goggles so didn't get the full experience, but still saw lots of fish.

A wave crashing against lava cliffs on the puna coast at Mackenzie State Park.

Later that evening, after dark, we drove to the active lava flow viewing area however they were turning people away due to toxic fumes blowing in from the big vent at the top of the volcano. So we went to Kalapana at the end of the road (which closed when the lava flowed over it) for a cup of kava and some dinner.