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Woke early and after breakfast headed for the highest mountain in Hawaii, Mauna Kea which is almost 14,000 feet high!
The Visitor's Centre is at about 9,000 feet and we dropped in there and watched a video and looked at the sun through a special telescope. It is recommended that you stay there for at least 30 mins to get used to the reduced oxygen level. There are many dire warnings about the road from the visitor's centre and how dangerous it is. In fact, Jacobs Ladder is far scarier!
We found the oxygen level at 14,000 feet made us feel a bit light headed so we didn't do anything too strenuous. There are a lot of telescopes on the top of Mauna Kea! Apparently, there are plans to build more but the locals are a bit upset and I can see why. It is a sacred site but there are dozens of telescopes, both optical and radio up there.
We drove back down and the landscape is very barren, so much so that the Apollo astronauts used the area as training for the moon missions!
Then we drove to the east coast to the town of Hilo where we had lunch(sandwiches which we made at breakfast)then continued on and went on a forest walk and to a huge waterfall. By now it was bucketting down!
After a nice afternoon tea we headed north and back across the island to our resort.
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Chris waller Ah yes, seen those telescopes on tv documentaries