Hawaiian archipelago. Hawaiian Islands in the North Pacific Ocean What to Buy in the Hawaiian Islands

The Hawaiian Islands are located almost in the center of the Pacific Ocean. The Hawaiian archipelago of volcanic origin has 162 islands, the total area of ​​which is slightly more than 28 thousand square kilometers, only seven of them are inhabited. By the way, the Hawaiian Islands are the fiftieth state of the United States, its population is 1.3 million Human. The largest part of it, which is logical, is concentrated on the largest island of the archipelago, which is called Hawaii, and boasts the presence of several active volcanoes. There are several cities on the islands, the largest of which is Honolulu, this is the state capital, and here, by the way, Barack Obama was born.

Nature of the Hawaiian Islands

amazes with the riot of tropical plants, perfect beaches, and unique landscapes. Each island has its own climatic characteristics, but in general the weather in Hawaii is favorable. There are rains in summer and autumn, but they are quite short-lived. It is never stuffy or extremely hot, but there are storms and hurricanes, and the city of Hilo sometimes suffers from a tsunami.

Gone are the days when Hawaii produced sandalwood, whaling, grew pineapples and sugar cane, and hosted military bases. The main source of income for the state is tourism, and all thanks to the unique nature of the archipelago. There are beaches with white, red, black and even green sand, volcanoes and volcanic craters, valleys, waterfalls, mountain rivers, coastal cliffs, magnificent views and romantic sunsets. And most importantly, in Hawaii you can hide from the crowds and bustle of the big world.

People come to Hawaii to relax

those who love the exotic, seek new sensations and adventures, who admire the magic of nature and dream of visiting a paradise on the planet. The image of Hawaii is created by the silhouettes of hula dancers and surfers rushing through the waves, the melodies of ukuleles, the aromas of wreaths of ginger flowers, the exclamation of “Aloha!”, sunsets and the taste of a pina colada cocktail.

Of course, the Hawaiian archipelago has a developed tourism infrastructure, with luxury hotels, chic restaurants and fashion boutiques adjacent to miniature shops, tiny cozy cafes and much more modest accommodation for tourists. The main influx of tourists is in winter, from December to March. Suspecting that not everyone would be able to eat traditional local seafood and fruit dishes for a long time, Hawaiians opened numerous restaurants serving international cuisine and dishes from different countries.

What to do while vacationing in Hawaii when you get tired of lying on the beach?

In the homeland of surfing, it would be a sin not to at least once try to catch a wave or try other water activities, be it windsurfing, water skiing, diving, sailing or kayaking. Mountain bikes, horseback riding tours, tennis courts, golf courses, and excursion routes are available for those interested. At night, restaurants, clubs and bars operate in cities and large towns.

In order not to run into a large fine, you should know that Hawaii restricts smoking more strictly than other US states. Smoking is not allowed even on many beaches. You can only drink alcohol if you are 21 years old. When entering Hawaii, all fresh fruits, vegetables and flowers must be declared to protect the islands from diseases or plant pests. Exporting fruit is prohibited.

October 19, 2014

A paradise on our planet, fabulous beaches and bright sun, delicate and cold cocktails, surfing and shrimp - it sounds extremely pleasant and tempting.

It’s so good that these are not just dreams or footage from a Hollywood movie, this is reality, these are the Hawaiian Islands. They are located in the North Pacific Ocean and are the fiftieth state of the United States. The main one has the appropriate name - Hawaii, or the Big Hawaiian Island. Besides it, 5 more islands are considered the main ones - Oahu, Kauai, Maui, Molokai and Lanai. All 24 islands of the Hawaiian archipelago are unique and can surprise everyone, even those who have seen quite a lot in this life. In the vastness of Hawaii, you can find virtually every manifestation of nature - from rugged to serene mountains, from hot black sand beaches to tropical rainforests, from rocky wastelands to overgrown impenetrable jungles.

Culture

Hawaii is also known for its ancient and rich culture. Local residents jealously guard the old laws and traditions of their people. All the well-known flower garlands take their roots from the culture of the Hawaiian Islands. According to this tradition, such garlands are given along with a kiss, but while the person who put these flowers on you is nearby, you are not allowed to remove the gift. The canoe is also a striking example of the creativity and traditions of this tribe. The early inhabitants of Hawaii were very famous for their ability to build such unusual boats. For those who respect traditions, the ritual of prayer to the gods was very important. The craftsmen were obliged to pray to them and make offerings for them without interruption: even before they began cutting down trees, then during the process itself, and even after the trees were removed from the forest. In the Hawaiian Islands, there are a number of rules that must be followed to properly cut trees for canoes. Well, the Hawaiian language is also an amazing manifestation of culture. It has only 13 letters, 5 of them are vowels, the remaining 8 are consonants. Therefore, the Hawaiian alphabet is considered the shortest in the world. But this does not mean that such a language is easy to learn. Not everyone will be able to cope with it, because the Hawaiian language mainly consists of soft words that are not so easy to pronounce and remember.

Sports tourism

Hawaii is a great place for vacation or sports tourism. But besides this, it is worth remembering that it is quite dangerous. There is a deliberate number of both professional trails and routes for amateur tourists. But even if you are trained and confident, it would be a good idea to first learn as much as possible about the features of traveling in Hawaii. For example, it is worth knowing that due to its proximity to the equator, it begins to get dark on the islands very early, which means you need to calculate your time so that you have time to both look at the landscapes and return to the hotel on time. Therefore, be smart and reasonable, and then you will have a simply amazing vacation in Hawaii.

Hawaiian Islands photo

Located in the central part of the Pacific Ocean on the Hawaiian Islands, more than three and a half thousand kilometers away from North America. The area of ​​Hawaii is 28,311 km 2 (forty-third place among).

Hawaii is one of two (along with) exclaves of the United States of America that do not share a border with. It is also the southernmost of all the states and the only one located entirely on islands.

The Hawaiian Islands are an archipelago of many islands, atolls and rocks, stretching more than 2,400 km from the island of Hawaii in the south to Kur Atoll in the north. The archipelago is generally divided into southeastern (also known as the Windward or "main") and northwestern (or Leeward) islands.

The Windward Islands are Hawaii (which gives the entire archipelago its name and is also often called the Big Island), Maui, Kahoolawe, Lanai, Molokai, Oahu, Kauai and Niihau. The largest of the Leeward Islands are Nihoa, Necker, French Frigate Shoals, Gardner, Laysan, Lisyansky Island, Pearl and Hermes, Midway (which is not part of the state of Hawaii, having the status of an "unorganized territory" of the United States) and the atoll Kure. In addition, there are more than one hundred and thirty small islands in the Hawaiian archipelago.

The Hawaiian Islands are of volcanic origin, while the “hot spot” of the earth’s crust that formed them gradually moved over millions of years from the northwest (accordingly, the Leeward Islands are much more destroyed by erosion) to the southeast (up to the “youngest” island of Hawaii).

The "Big Island" of the Hawaiian archipelago was formed as a result of the eruptions of five volcanoes, three of which are still active today. The most active of them, Kilauea, has been erupting continuously since 1983, and nearby Mauna Loa is the largest volcano on Earth by volume of rocks composing it. The dormant volcano Mauna Kea is the highest point in the state (4,207 meters above sea level), and taking into account the underwater part, the height of this mountain is about 10,200 meters, that is, more than the height of Everest. In 1916, Hawaiian Volcanoes National Park was created on the island, where Kilauea and Mauna Loa are located.

Due to high volcanic activity, earthquakes occur very often in Hawaii; the state ranks third (after and) in the United States of America in terms of their number. The coasts of the Hawaiian Islands are also occasionally hit by tsunamis and tropical storms.

However, despite this, Hawaii has the mildest climatic conditions of all. The Hawaiian Islands are located in the tropics, but the trade winds blowing from the east somewhat reduce the temperature and humidity characteristic of this region. The rainy season lasts from October to April, with very little rainfall in summer. There are almost no seasonal variations in temperature; in the capital and largest city of the state, Honolulu, located on the island of Oahu, in January the average temperature ranges from 19°C to 27°C, and in August - from 24°C to 32°C. In Hilo, Hawaii, temperatures typically range from 18°C ​​to 26°C in January, and from 21°C to 28°C in August.

The island of Tasmania, the Rotorua Valley and Fiordland in New Zealand, the islands of Hawaii and Maui.

02/20/2017 / 11:09 | Varvara Pokrovskaya

Tasmania Island

The climate of Australia, from a European point of view, cannot be called fertile. The interior regions of this continent are dry savannas and deserts, while on the seaward slopes of the Great Dividing Range there is an abundance of rain and humid stuffiness. And everywhere - heat, heat, heat...

And only the island of Tasmania can be considered a truly paradise, where a traveler arriving from the Old World will find the desired coolness and familiar mountain-forest landscapes, flavored, however, with a fair amount of purely Australian exoticism.

Australia would not be Australia if it did not amaze us at every turn with the unusualness of its flora and fauna, and Tasmania in this sense is no exception.

This huge island, larger than Sri Lanka and only slightly smaller than Ireland or Haiti, is separated from the mainland by the two-hundred-kilometer Bass Strait. Two chains of islands in the west and east of the strait connect Tasmania to the rest of Australia. When you look on a sunny day from the southern tip of the mainland - Cape South-East - towards Tasmania, the sight of these islands, rising like two intermittent bridges above the blue surface of the Bass Strait, reminds us that Australia and its largest island once formed a single landmass .

The coasts of Tasmania are cut by narrow, deep bays, similar to the fjords of Norway. Mountainous terrain, an abundance of forests and lakes, combined with a cool climate, sharply distinguish Tasmania from the arid plains of inland Australia, as well as from its tropical rainforest-covered east coast. For European travelers, this island most closely resembles the Scottish Highlands.

And some European tourists even call Tasmania “Switzerland in miniature.” On its mountainous shores, indented by bays and washed by the breath of the sea wind, wonderful green valleys open up leading to the center of the island, on a plateau where lakes sparkle, wooded hills rise and their peaks are covered with a blanket of snow for six months.

The highest of these peaks is Ben Lomond, which rises its crest one and a half kilometers above sea level (by Australian standards this is not so little: above Ben Lomond there are only the “Australian Alps” with the highest mountain in Australia - Kosciuszko). Numerous lakes, giving rise to turbulent rapids rivers, give the Tasmanian landscape a completely alpine appearance. Is there a lake almost in the very center of the island? Great Lake. It, like the neighboring lakes St. Clair and Eco, serves as one of the sources of the lava river of Tasmania - the Derwent. All these reservoirs are hidden in the depths of the mountains, surrounded by wild rocks with jagged ridges and are indeed very similar to Scottish or Swiss lakes.

And the rivers of Tasmania are also unlike those in Australia, sluggish, muddy and dry for ten months of the year. They are born from clear mountain springs or always full-flowing lakes and all year round noisily rush along their rocky beds in deep gorges, washed in basalts and shales, among dense forests of tree ferns and meadows strewn with bright flowers, until they finally flow into narrow bays . In the lower reaches they are even similar, and along the Derwent River, for example, motor ships rise about forty kilometers from the mouth.

Despite the dissimilarity of climate, the flora of Tasmania and Australia is the same. Of the more than a thousand plants living on the island, only three hundred are not found on the mainland. And here, as on the other side of the Bass Strait, the mountain slopes are covered with eucalyptus forests. One of the species of these amazing trees, eucalyptus globulus, reaches one hundred and twenty meters in height, rivaling in height the recognized record holder of the green kingdom - the American sequoia. The humid gorges are home to giant tree ferns and Franklin pines, famous for their luxurious redwood. There are also plenty of flowers in Tasmania: there are more than eighty species of orchids alone!

The forests of Tasmania, however, do not have such a variety of tree species as, for example, the tropical rainforests of Queensland in northeastern Australia. Five or six, maximum eight species of plants dominate here, but the abundance of moisture and mild winters allow them to develop to gigantic sizes. Eucalyptus trees and tree ferns coexist with southern beeches and pines, so Tasmanian forests are a mixture of tropical vegetation and temperate trees.

The fauna of Tasmania, this fragment of Australia, is naturally very similar to that of Australia. True, some animals and birds live only on the island, but only because on the mainland they were destroyed by man or replaced by animals introduced by him.

First of all, two of the three predators of the Australian fauna live in Tasmania alone: ​​the marsupial wolf and the marsupial devil. Only the marsupial marten is found on the mainland.
The marsupial wolf was once widespread in Australia, but, apparently, in the Stone Age it lost in the struggle for survival to the dingo, brought here by the aborigines and the wild dog, and died out, leaving the plains of the continent to its more friendly and aggressive competitors. This short-legged animal with a striped back like a tiger hunted mainly kangaroos, but also did not disdain rats, echidnas, lizards and birds.

In Tasmania, difficult days came for him when farmers from England began to develop the island. The predator that attacked the sheep was exterminated mercilessly, and now only in the most remote mountain gorges are its traces occasionally found.

The marsupial devil still survives in many mountainous areas of Tasmania. Unlike another common predator here, the marsupial marten, which is easily tamed and often lives in houses instead of a cat, the devil has an evil and indomitable nature. Furious rage, combined with a terrible, howling roar that can be heard at night when he goes hunting, is the reason that the animal, which is not so large (about the size of a small dog) and not at all dangerous to humans, received such an unsympathetic nickname.

The menu of marsupial devils consists mainly of lizards, rats, small tree kangaroos, parrots, frogs, and crayfish. The harm it causes to humans consists mostly of raids on chicken coops and occasionally attacks on a gaping lamb. Despite its gloomy and even unpleasant appearance, the marsupial devil greatly amuses zoologists observing it with its funny habits. For example, he (the only one of all animals!) washes himself in an absolutely human way: with his paws folded into a ladle, which neither a cat, nor a raccoon, nor a monkey can do.

In recent years, many more tourists are trying to get to Tasmania. Its proximity to the mainland makes it easily accessible to the traveler who has already crossed half the world to reach Australia. And everyone who has been here will agree that getting to know this picturesque and unique island is no less impressive than meeting two other island pearls of the Southern Hemisphere: New Zealand and Tierra del Fuego.

Each of these three places is unusual and interesting in its own way, none is like the other, but Tasmania has more of a kind of “European” charm, and therefore it becomes closer and dearer to the heart of a traveler from the Old World, although the exoticism of the other two southern islands worlds may seem, at first glance, more impressive.

Rotorua Valley

There is probably no country on our planet that could compare with New Zealand in the number of amazing, exotic and one-of-a-kind natural phenomena and objects collected on its relatively small territory.

Volcanoes and geysers, caves and waterfalls, fjords and glaciers, rare reptiles and birds, unique trees and flowers - it’s hard to even list all the natural wonders with which this small state, located in the “far south,” amazes the traveler.

But the most important miracle of New Zealand is the famous Rotorua Valley, which every guest of New Zealand considers it his duty to visit. And New Zealanders themselves do not ignore this amazing corner of nature with their attention.

Rotorua is located in the center of the North Island of New Zealand on the Volcanic Plateau. The Maori, the long-time inhabitants of this island, named the valley Takiwa-Waiariki, which means “Land of Hot Water”. Even on the streets of the town of Rotorua, the center of this geothermal area, you can see jets of white steam gushing from cracks in the sidewalks. Hundreds of hot and cold springs are located in the vicinity of the town and on the shores of the lake of the same name.

The Maori who lived here were clearly not timid people. They built their village of Whakarevareva in the heart of this unusual area, among whistling streams of steam, gurgling hot springs, roaring geysers and bubbling mud pots. Moreover, they tried to make better use of the natural features of Rotorua: huts were built on areas with warm soil heated from below, pools were built where they swam in hot water all year round, and they even boiled fish, immersing it in a kind of “string bag” directly in natural boiling water.

And in our time, the hotels built here have swimming pools filled with thermal waters, and the heating in the hotels provides the warmth of the earth’s bowels.

But Rotorua's main attraction is its famous geysers. There are dozens of them here, and the jets, shooting four to five meters high, envelop in clouds of steam both the shore of Lake Rotorua and the outskirts of the village, where red wooden statues of Maori gods with fierce faces and protruding tongues are lined up along the only street.
The most powerful geyser, Pohutu, shoots a stream of boiling water thirty meters up. The water eruption lasts for an hour, or even longer. Sometimes several geysers erupt at the same time, and sometimes they “work” one by one, as if trying to outdo each other with the power of the jets and the unusual shape of the fountain.

The white siliceous deposits that decorate the openings of natural fountains have yellow tints, formed from hydrogen sulfide dissolved in water. Unfortunately, not all of this not very fragrant gas is precipitated in the form of sulfur secretions, and in the air of Rotorua, even on the approach to the lake, you can feel its specific “aroma”.

The Puarenga River, which flows into Lake Rotorua, is fed by cold and hot springs. In some places, the streams of the springs do not have time to mix and, when you put your hands in the water, you feel both warm and cold. Hot springs also flow from the bottom of the lake. And on the island of Mokoya, located in the middle of it, the most famous and popular among tourists, the hot spring of Hinemoa, gushes out, bathing in which is an obligatory ritual for visitors to Rotorua.

Local residents also swim in Hinemoa. For them, this is an ancient sacred rite that brings health and strength to warriors. Maori believe that every lake or hot spring in Rotorua is home to its own taniwa-igarara - a dragon-like fairy-tale creature that protects its hot home from the attacks of evil spirits. According to Maori legend, the Moon itself disappears from the sky once a month to swim in the magical underground lake Aeva, which feeds geysers with water. Having bathed in its living water. The moon gains strength and sets off on a new journey across the sky. Therefore, the residents of Whakarevareva willingly bathe in the waters of hot springs, which have such healing powers.

About ten kilometers southeast of this kingdom of geysers, hidden in the crater of an extinct volcano are the famous Waimangu Lakes - two bodies of water of blue and green colors. The color of the water in them is explained by the different composition of the rocks through which the springs flow that feed the lakes. The multicolored waters here are also complemented by the brightly colored rocks of the crater, to which iron oxides in some places gave a red tint, and sulfur deposits gave a yellow tint.

For many centuries, Waimanga was decorated with the wonderful Pink and White Terraces, which occupied an area of ​​more than five hectares and surpassed even the world famous terraces of Pamukkale in Turkey in the beauty of their openwork cascades of limestone tuff deposited from hot springs.

Travelers were especially amazed by the White Terraces, which resembled a giant marble staircase covered with openwork carvings. Alas, in 1886, a catastrophic eruption of the nearby Tarawera volcano destroyed this rare masterpiece, created by thermal springs over many thousands of years, overnight.

That year, on June 10, powerful tremors woke up residents in the area. A strong explosion split the top of Tarawera, and thick clouds of smoke and steam, illuminated by flashes of lightning, rose ten kilometers above the mountain. Flaming debris separated from the pillar of fire and fell into the lake with a roar and splash. Soon it turned into a kind of hell, where a terrible mixture of dirt and steam bubbled. Evergreen forests on the slopes of Tarawera perished, fields and vegetable gardens in the area were destroyed. Two Maori villages were completely flooded by a mud flow, and a hail of volcanic bombs rained down on the neighboring town of Wairoa, killing sixteen of its inhabitants.

The terraces were buried under a thick layer of volcanic ash and pieces of lava that flew out of the volcano's crater. However, the volcano could not block the hot springs themselves forever. In 1900, a gigantic fountain of hot water burst out of the ground in Waimangu, the likes of which had never been seen in New Zealand. At that time, the Waimangu geyser was the most powerful in the world and threw out a powerful stream of water mixed with steam, stones and sand to a height of four hundred and fifty meters!

It raged and roared for hours, then fell silent, but after thirty hours it again threw out a fountain of boiling water. It was not easy to calculate the time when the next water eruption would begin, and several inquisitive onlookers paid with their lives for trying to study the silent giant.

For four years, a giant geyser raged in the valley, stunning eyewitnesses with the fantastic size of its fountain. Then the Waimangu stream began to weaken, and in 1908 the geyser ceased to exist.

Another thermal area lies fifty kilometers south of Rotorua, near New Zealand's largest lake Taupo. Here, in the Wairakei Valley, is the famous Karapiti "steam cave", from which clouds of steam burst out with enormous force, filling the surrounding area with a terrifying roar. Here in 1958, the world's first geothermal power plant was built, using groundwater to generate electricity.

Lake Taupo itself is amazingly picturesque. The depth of this huge reservoir, located in the very center of the Volcanic Plateau, reaches one hundred meters. To the south, a mighty volcanic massif rises above the lake, including three of the country's four active volcanoes: Ruapehu, Tongariro and Ngauruhoe.

Ruapehu, the highest of them, reaches a height of almost two thousand eight hundred meters. It is the highest peak in the North Island. It is famous for its activity, erupting on average once every half century and thereby justifying its name, which means “Thundering Abyss.” In the Ruapehu crater there is a hot lake, which disappears before the volcanic eruptions, and then is reborn again. The last outbreaks of Ruapehu activity occurred in 1945 and 1995.

The shores of the hot lake are bordered by snowfields and glaciers, which also exist only during intervals between eruptions.

However, the most active of New Zealand's volcanoes is not Ruapehu, but its neighbor Ngauruhoe, which is half a kilometer lower than its older brother. Clouds of steam constantly swirl above it, and ash emissions and outpourings of small portions of lava often occur. However, it happens that Ngauruhoe gets really angry, and then red-hot stone blocks the size of a truck fly out of the crater.

The calmest of the three volcanoes is Tongariro. It is also the lowest of the “mighty three”: its height is less than two kilometers. Tongariro's last eruption occurred in 1896. The top of the ancient volcano is furrowed with traces of past eruptions and represents a whole labyrinth of destroyed craters. Only in one place on the northern slope do Ketetahi hot springs gush out, recalling the turbulent past of the volcano, which has not yet completely cooled down.

The Maori considered Ruapehu a sacred mountain, and no logging, fishing or hunting was allowed in its vicinity. And in 1887, the leader of the Ngati Tuaharetoa Maori tribe, Te Heuheu Tukino, donated the sacred land to the nation and it became the core of New Zealand's first and one of the world's first National Parks, called Tongariro.

In addition to the three volcanoes, in Tongariro Park the traveler will see a huge forest area, almost unchanged by man. Along the only highway you can drive through beautiful subtropical forests, completely different from European, African or South American ones. Not a single tree here is unknown in other parts of the world. Coniferous rimu, deciduous miro, totara, matai rise among impenetrable thickets of tree and herbaceous ferns. The abundance of aerial roots and flowers growing directly on tree trunks is amazing.

Beech forests begin at a height of eight hundred meters, rising to a level of one and a half kilometers. And above there are meadows, on which flowers and herbs that are completely unfamiliar to us also grow. But after a hundred meters they are replaced by eternal snow.

The main wonder of these unusual forests is the bird world. There are so many strange birds here! White-eye and fan-tailed pigeon, red-fronted parrot and New Zealand falcon, and, of course, the main attraction of the New Zealand bird world - the kiwi. This unusual, brownish-colored, nocturnal, secretive bird, the size of a chicken, looks more like some kind of animal. Due to its narrow and long shaggy feathers, it appears to be covered with fur. The kiwi sleeps, leaning on its long beak like a third leg. Once a year, the female lays one huge egg, three times the size of a chicken egg and weighing half a kilogram, after which she leaves further care for it to the male.

Kiwis aren't the only flightless birds in New Zealand. There are as many as thirty species here, and many of them surprise with their unusual habits or appearance. Among these feathered pedestrians are the owl parrot, which lives on the ground in burrows, the Ueki rail and others. Unfortunately, the giant moa birds, exterminated in the Middle Ages, reaching three meters in height and four hundred kilograms of weight, did not survive to this day.

In Tongariro you can see the beautiful large green parrot Nestor and the thuja bird, famous for its amazingly gentle singing. Only the bluebell bird can compete with her beauty of voice. Tui is so popular in New Zealand that many families name girls after her.

The British, who came to New Zealand in the 19th century, brought and settled many native European animals and birds in the forests of the North Island. Therefore, in Tongariro you can meet the familiar blackbird, chaffinch, partridge or pheasant. There are also deer, chamois and hares, as well as feral pigs. The fact is that the British, most of them avid hunters, arrived on the island and discovered that there were no mammals here at all, except for two species of bats. And then the settlers, overcome by the excitement of hunting, decided to fill this gap in the fauna, which is why local animals and plants suffered greatly as a result. Even today, the park administration regularly invites hunters, inviting them to shoot deer, pigs and hares that pose a threat to the nature of Tongariro.

The densely populated North Island of New Zealand, where two-thirds of its population lives, has preserved protected forests and volcanoes, geysers and rare birds. Thousands of tourists walk the Tongariro trails every day, admire the geysers of Rotorua and swim in the hot pools of the Wairakei Valley. There is no other country on our planet where National Parks, reserves and other protected areas occupy such a huge area - almost a fifth of the country. But the most popular among them were the unique corners of nature on the Volcanic Plateau, and first of all, the amazing miracle created by formidable underground forces on the outskirts of the Maori village of Whakarewarewa, in the amazing valley of Rotorua geysers.

Fiordland

The extreme southwest of the South Island of New Zealand has long been called Fiordland - the Land of Fjords. The nature here is strikingly different from the hilly plateaus of the North Island, above which only here and there low cones of young volcanoes rise. The South Island is a predominantly mountainous country, the backbone of which is the mighty chain of the Southern Alps, raising their snowy peaks to almost four kilometers in height.

A huge glacier that once covered this area carved deep trough-shaped gorges into the slopes of the ridge, in which one and a half dozen narrow long lakes and at least thirty deep fjord bays were formed, which gave the name to this picturesque corner of the country.

Nature has generously endowed New Zealand with beauty, but the landscapes of Fiordland are the most beautiful thing that can be seen in this fabulous land, and perhaps on our entire planet.

The traveler who gets here is at first speechless when the ship enters a calm bay surrounded by kilometer-long rock walls and heads deep into the island, to where the snow is white on the slopes of the Southern Alps.

And the further the ship sails, the longer you get acquainted with the amazing and diverse nature of Fiordland, the more you are amazed by the magical beauty of the surrounding places. And it is difficult to decide what is the most picturesque, the most interesting, the most majestic and the most exciting in this wild and deserted country: bays or mountains, forests or waterfalls, lakes or glaciers, rare, endangered birds or the longest mosses in the world...

Giant glacial tongues descending from the mountains twenty thousand years ago cut winding fjords into the rocky shores of the South Island, sometimes going fifty kilometers inland, into which three-hundred-meter waterfalls plunge from steep cliffs. And located in the vicinity of the Milford Sound fjord, Sutherland Falls, whose height reaches almost six hundred meters, is one of the five highest on our planet.

The New Zealand bays compare favorably with the equally beautiful fjords of Norway or Southern Chile in the complete absence of traces of human activity. Their banks go so steeply into the water that it is not easy to find a place on them not only for a settlement, but even just for a tourist tent. The second characteristic feature of Fiordland is the unusually close proximity of its coastal forests to mountain glaciers.

Nowhere else on Earth do rivers of ice descend directly to the edge of moist evergreen forests. The combination of the bluish, fissured half-kilometer thickness of the glacier with the thickets of myrtle, southern beech and laurel bordering its foot amazes everyone who sees it for the first time.

Meanwhile, the apparent implausibility of this picture is easily explained. Due to the steepness of the western "front" of the Southern Alps, New Zealand's glaciers move much faster than their counterparts elsewhere in the Pyrenees or Himalayas. Some of them, such as the Tasman Glacier, move down half a meter every day. Before melting, the tongue of the glacier sometimes manages to descend to a height of three hundred meters above sea level. And the upper limit of forests at this latitude reaches thousands of meters. As a result, ice and tropical forests meet each other, ignoring “intermediaries” like alpine meadows or mountain tundra.

Even more beautiful are the numerous mountain lakes of the Southern Alps. Narrow, long and compressed by rocky slopes rising one and a half to two kilometers above their blue waters, they are somewhat reminiscent of the reservoirs of the Taimyr Putorana plateau in Siberia. But, of course, the forests surrounding Lakes Te Anau, Waikatipu, Wanaka, Ohau or Rakaia are immeasurably richer, denser, higher and more luxurious than the Putorana larch woodlands.

The valleys deep in the mountainous regions are practically uninhabited. Many places in Fiordland have never been touched by humans. And each new expedition discovers here previously unknown peaks, waterfalls, lakes and passes.

The longest lake in New Zealand, Waikatipu, stretches from northwest to southeast for almost a hundred kilometers, cutting the ridge in a blue transverse zigzag. Its depth reaches four hundred meters. So many rivers flow into the Waikatipu, which, due to the lack of population, did not have local names, that topographers chose not to exercise their imagination, but to simply designate them on the map with serial numbers: from the First to the Twenty-Fifth.

A mysterious natural phenomenon is associated with this lake, for which science has not yet found an explanation. The water in it rises by seven and a half centimeters every five minutes, then drops to its previous level. The lake seems to be breathing. New Zealanders like to say that beneath the waters of Waikatipu beats the heart of the South Island.

And here is how the ancient Maori legend explains the mystery of Lake Waikatipu: “Long ago,” it says, “lived in one of the valleys of the island the daughter of the chief Manata and the brave young hunter and warrior Matakauri. The young man and the girl fell in love with each other, but trouble happened - the evil giant Matau attacked their village and took Manata to his possessions, far into the depths of the snow-capped mountains. In despair, the old leader, the girl’s father, turned to all the warriors of the tribe, begging them to save his daughter. He promised to give her to the one who saves the girl. wives.

None of the men dared to fight the giant, and only Matakauri dared to do this desperate thing. The young daredevil climbed high into the mountains and found a sleeping giant there, and next to him, Manata tied to a tree. Having freed his beloved, he went down with her to the village, but did not stay there with the girl, but returned to the mountains again. After all, it was clear that, having woken up, the evil giant would again descend into the valley and deal with the kidnapper, and take the girl back.

And Matakauri decided to destroy the giant. While he was sleeping, with his head on one mountain and his feet on the other two, the young man began to drag armfuls of brushwood, twigs and logs from the forest and cover the sleeping giant with them. Matakauri worked many days and nights. Then, by rubbing two pieces of wood together, he got a fire and lit the fire. The giant was engulfed in flames, and the smoke obscured the sun. The heat from the huge fire was so strong that the flames burned through the ground. A gigantic depression was formed, resembling the outline of a giant's body. Rains and mountain rivers filled it with water and turned it into a lake, which people called Waikatipu. And only the giant’s heart did not burn. It lies deep at the bottom of the lake and is still beating. And with each blow, the lake waters rise and fall..."

Over the past decades, so many rare birds have been discovered in the remote corners of the Fjord Country that the country's authorities decided to create a national park with an area of ​​one million two hundred thousand hectares in this part of the island! (Its territory is larger than the territory of Lebanon or Cyprus.) In the forests of Fiordland Park you can find the rare owl parrot-kakapo, which lives in earthen burrows and feeds on snails and worms, or the huge and unusual in its habits predatory parrot kea, capable, like the African vulture, butcher the carcasses of dead sheep, leaving only skeletons of them.

The kea was practically exterminated in other places in New Zealand, as cattle farmers believed that it could sit on the backs of sheep and tear out pieces of meat directly from living animals, and therefore mercilessly destroyed the beautiful bird, which, by the way, first tasted meat only after the arrival of Europeans . After all, before this, there were no mammals in New Zealand at all, except for bats, and only the English settlers accustomed kea to an unusual type of food. The fact is that before the invention of reefer ships, New Zealanders sent only sheep wool to England and threw away the carcasses. And then, around the slaughterhouses there was enough food for a well-fed existence for more than a dozen winged “orderlies.” However, most zoologists categorically reject the accusation of attacks on live sheep.

Also found in the mountain thickets of Fiordland are the most beautiful emerald parrot, the vocal thuja bird and the generally accepted best singer of the mountain forests, prosaically called the yellow crow.

And in 1948, on the shores of Lake Te Anau, amateur naturalist Orbell discovered the takahe bird, which was considered long extinct, which became the largest ornithological discovery of the 20th century. The takahe is a flightless bird about the size of a large goose. It is distinguished by its bright, beautiful plumage, strong legs and a short, thick beak of bright red color. Once upon a time, before the arrival of Europeans, there were so many takahe on the South Island that the entire western coast of the Maori was called "the place where the takahe live."

For immigrants from England, game that was unable to fly away became easy prey, and already at the end of the 19th century, hunters stopped seeing takahe. It was believed that they had been completely exterminated, but after more than half a century it turned out that several pairs of unique birds found shelter on the shores of a hard-to-reach mountain lake. Now their habitat is under strict protection, and the rare bird species seems to have been saved from death.

Some optimistic zoologists believe that in the inaccessible corners of Fiordland, the gigantic moa birds, three-meter tall giants of the New Zealand fauna, could have survived to this day. Disappeared several centuries ago, they were the largest birds on Earth, along with the now extinct inhabitant of Madagascar - the giant ostrich apiornis. Alas, the hopes of optimists are most likely groundless. No traces of the moa have yet been found.

And on the highways in the southern part of the island you can often see an unusual road sign with an image of a penguin enclosed in a red circle. Thus, the road service warns about the crossing areas of yellow-eyed penguins - small, cute birds, completely different in lifestyle from their polar counterparts. They make their nests in the forest, several kilometers from the coast, and every day they slowly walk to the sea, where they get food for themselves and their offspring.

From the southernmost large city in New Zealand, Dunedin, the Country of Fjords can be reached both by land and sea. The most popular of the bays of Fiordland, Milford Sound, leads from Lake Waikatipu through a narrow road through an amazingly beautiful gorge. New Zealanders nicknamed this path the "Path of Miracles". The lake itself, covered in legends, is connected to the inhabited areas of the eastern coast by an ancient road, once laid by gold miners. At one time, Waikatipu experienced a period of “gold rush”, when tent cities and gold mines sprang up on its shores like mushrooms. But the reserves of the precious metal soon ran out, and now only this old road reminds of the old days.

No less interesting, and even more accessible for tourists unprepared for mountain trekking, is traveling through the fjords by boat. Such a voyage will allow, regardless of the weather (which here is replete with rain and fog), to enjoy the fantastic landscapes of the Land of Fjords and, in particular, to visit Dusky Sound, hidden behind the mountainous Resolution Island, where more than two centuries ago the camp of the Cook expedition, which compiled the first map of the coast, was located Fiordland He also named the island, which protects the hospitable and picturesque bay from autumn storms, after his ship “Resolution”.

And a hundred miles to the north, the main attraction of Fiordland, the famous Milford Sound, crashes forty kilometers into the coast. And when the ship passes Mount Mithres, which guards the entrance to it, raising its peak one thousand seven hundred meters above the sea, and finds itself surrounded by steep wooded slopes of coastal ridges, the traveler begins to feel as if he is sailing into a fairy tale. The blue and emerald waters of the fjord are not stirred by the slightest breeze. From the green thickets comes the gentle voice of the thuja bird. Ahead, at the turn of the bay, a long foamy ribbon of a waterfall shines silver, and even further, in the very depths, rise the snowy peaks of the Humboldt Mountains, behind which lies the mysterious and alluring Lake Waikatipu.

At the foot of the mountains lies the only settlement on the entire coast of the National Park - the Milford Sound tourist base, from where a picturesque trail will lead the traveler to the amazing and grandiose natural wonder of the Southern Alps - the crazy jump of a mighty river from a black cliff called Sutherland Falls.

From here, a simple pass leads the tourist to the shores of the spacious and deep Lake Te Anau, the home of the clumsy red-billed takahe - the fortunately unextinct pearl of the bird kingdom. The further path will lead to the “Path of Miracles” lying just north, along which you can return to Milford Sound.

But the South Island experience is incomplete without continuing beyond Fiordland's northern border to the Westland Fjords, located at the foot of New Zealand's highest peak, Mount Cook. The stunning landscape that unfolds here can be very roughly described as a Swiss view in the Mont Blanc region with the Norwegian seaside landscape in the foreground. This is a real symphony of shapes and colors of the sea, jungle, snow, ice and stone.

Of course, you can truly feel the enchanting and even piercing beauty of this mountain landscape only by walking along the steeps and ice of the Southern Alps. In addition, a breathtaking journey along the bluish-white slopes of the Franz Josef glacier, reaching almost six hundred meters in thickness, will make the traveler experience many thrills when crossing cracks on snow bridges and descending from almost vertical icefalls.

The exit from the ice zone to the sea through foggy humid forests, overgrown with waist-length mosses and resounding with ringing birdsong, will be a spectacular final chord in this journey, full of vivid impressions, amazing contrasts and unforgettable landscapes, to the opposite side of the globe from Moscow, to the most beautiful corner Oceania - New Zealand's Fiordland.

Islands of Hawaii and Maui

More than half of the entire territory of the Hawaiian archipelago falls on the share of its largest island - Hawaii. It is often called the “Island of Volcanoes”, and there is every reason for this, since Hawaii gave birth to as many as five fire-breathing mountains, merging into a single massif. Hawaii received its second nickname - "Orchid Island" - for the richness and exotic appearance of tropical vegetation.

And finally, one more, also well-deserved, name for this blessed piece of land in the vast expanses of the Pacific Ocean - “Dream Island”. Indeed, few corners of our planet will present the traveler with such a variety of amazing wonders of living and inanimate nature. Scuba divers will find here an amazing wealth of underwater coral thickets with their unique world of fish, algae and shellfish. Surfers will enjoy riding some of the most amazing waves the ocean has to offer. And at the very shore, the crest of the breaking wave is thrown back so that a real bluish-green tunnel is formed - the famous “Banzai pipe” - a unique miracle of Hawaii and a surfer’s dream.

The beaches on the island of Hawaii are unusual - they are composed of black sand formed from basaltic lavas ground by the surf. Such beaches become especially hot under the hot sun, bringing a lot of pleasure to swimmers. Wildlife lovers will enjoy the island even more.

The humid ocean winds blowing here - the trade winds - bring heavy rainfall to the eastern slopes of the island, and in combination with the tropical climate create fertile conditions for flora. The coast of the island is covered with amazingly beautiful forests.

The main thing about them is tree ferns, the most characteristic tree of the archipelago. One of the corners of Hawaii National Park is called “Fern Jungle”. These ancient plants are found in abundance in the forest belt of volcanic mountains, sometimes reaching a height of fifteen meters. Their thick trunks, black and soft, like a sponge, rise up in mighty columns, only at the top throwing out to the sides a whole bunch of large feathery leaves. Among the ferns, you can often find narrow and tall green candles of Araucaria, the only coniferous tree on the island. Valuable sandalwood, which was previously mercilessly cut down due to its aromatic wood being in high demand, is not uncommon here. And in some valleys you can see original trees, which have received humorous names from tourists: “Pink Splendor” and “Golden Splendor”. Their trunks are thin, and their branches, strewn with flowers, slope downwards and resemble the flower garlands with which Hawaiians like to decorate themselves during the holidays.

All the trees are densely entwined with vines and are full of many orchids and other exotic flowers. Small varieties of ferns often grow on their branches, creating the impression of large bird's nests with their lush green clumps. The delicate malachite carved leaves that form these “nests” are decorated with a network of marvelously beautiful purple veins. The ground is almost invisible: it is covered with a continuous carpet of grass and fluffy moss.

The abundance of moisture, by the way, favors not only the development of flora. The island of Hawaii is also famous for its many waterfalls, falling from the slopes of volcanoes directly into the sea and looking from the deck of the ship as sparkling silver ribbons, enlivening the monochromatic green cover of the slopes. The highest of them, Akaka Falls, falls from a height of one hundred and forty meters!

You can walk in the forests of the Hawaiian Islands without fear, as there are no large or small predators in them. There are also no snakes, no leeches, no mosquitoes and midges, which so plague the lives of travelers in tropical areas. The fauna of the archipelago is not rich in species at all. But most of the local inhabitants are found only on these islands. These are mainly rare birds, such as the Hawaiian goose miraculously saved from complete extermination or the tiny Hawaiian flower girl, fluttering over orchids like Latin American hummingbirds and deftly extracting nectar from flowers with its thin curved beak.

However, the main thing for which tourists come to Hawaii not only from Honolulu, the capital of the archipelago, located on the island of Oahu, but also from Australia, Japan and North America is its fire-breathing mountains, stunning, incredible, unlike volcanoes in other parts of the world.

Of the five volcanoes on the island, two - Mauna Kea and Kohala - have long since become quiet and do not show their once violent temper in any way. Mauna Kea, the highest mountain in Oceania, reaches an altitude of four thousand two hundred meters above sea level. Its gentle peak is almost always crowned with a snow cap, which is why the mountain got its name. (Mauna Kea is Polynesian for “White Mountain.”)

Another volcano on the island, Hualalai, was also considered extinct, but in 1801 it suddenly came to life for a short time, as if warning that it was too early to write it off, after which it calmed down again and has been sleeping for two centuries.

But the two remaining “windows into the depths” - the volcanoes Mauna Loa and Kilauea - more than compensate for the drowsiness and lethargic nature of their fellows. You will not find a more active volcanic pair anywhere else on the globe. Mauna Loa erupts on average once every three and a half years, and Kilauea even more often. Over the past ten years, there have been fifty eruptions, and once it raged without ceasing for two and a half years.

Mauna Loa is only forty meters lower than Mauna Kea, but in volume it is much larger than its neighbor. No wonder its name is translated as “Great Mountain”. The lava of Hawaiian volcanoes is very liquid and easily spreads to the sides, so Mauna Loa’s silhouette does not resemble a tall pointed cone, like Fuji or Etna, but rather a gigantic loaf of bread. The base of this gentle dome at sea level reaches a hundred kilometers in diameter, and on the ocean floor, at a depth of more than six kilometers, its diameter is four hundred kilometers!

Moved to Europe, Mauna Loa would take over all of Switzerland. Strictly speaking, Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea are the highest mountains in the world, since their height, counting from the seabed, exceeds ten kilometers. And the lava that makes up the gigantic colossus of the island of Hawaii would be enough to cover the whole of Canada or China with a layer five meters thick.

The Hawaiian archipelago stretches for three thousand kilometers from southeast to northwest in the North Pacific Ocean. Here, in the center of the Pacific lithospheric plate, there is a so-called hot spot, above which magma penetrating from the upper mantle erects a volcanic island. The plate itself is moving northwest at a speed of fifteen centimeters per year, but the “hot spot” remains in place. Therefore, the resulting volcanic piece of land soon turns out to be away from it, and then the melt emerging from the depths begins to form a new island next to it. Thus, over ten million years, a grandiose volcanic ridge was formed, in which the most ancient, long-extinct volcanoes “moved” thousands of kilometers away from the “hot spot,” and the youngest island—Hawaii—continues to grow today. And its main builder is Mauna Loa.

At the top of this volcano, in a huge crater with an area of ​​ten square kilometers and a depth of two hundred meters, during eruptions a lava lake is formed, the level of which gradually increases. Finally, the lava reaches the edges of the crater and pours down like a fiery river. Liquid molten rock flows along the slopes at high speed, sometimes up to fifty kilometers per hour, burning everything in its path and forming stunning fiery waterfalls, or, more precisely, “lavafalls” on steep ledges. Often the lava flow reaches the ocean shore, and then the coast is shrouded in thick clouds of steam, and the island grows slightly due to the resulting lava terrace. Thus, during the eruption of Mauna Loa in 1980, the area of ​​​​the island of Hawaii increased by two square kilometers.

The height of Kilauea is only one thousand two hundred meters. It is located on the eastern slope of Mauna Loa and was previously considered a side crater. Then it turned out that Kilauea has its own system of channels supplying lava, and the composition of this lava is different from that erupted by Mauna Loa.

For decades, in the main crater of Kilauea, which bears the beautiful Polynesian name Halemaumau, that is, “House of Fire,” a lake of liquid lava boiled. Sometimes only thirty meters separated the surface of the melt from the edge of the crater. But in 1924, the level of the lake of fire suddenly dropped to a depth of two hundred meters. And its surface was covered with a crust of frozen lava six meters thick, on which one could walk as if on ice.

Nowadays such walks are the main goal of everyone arriving in Hawaii. However, they are possible only during breaks between eruptions and only along specially laid paths, otherwise tourists are in danger of returning with burnt soles (or even not returning at all).

Several times a year, a dull noise is heard in the depths of Kilauea, after which kilometer-long cracks open in the lava crust of the crater lake, snaking in fiery zigzags, like lightning running across the ground. The bowl of the crater is filled with volcanic melt, and fantastic fiery fountains of liquid lava rise above the surface of this flaming lake, sometimes up to three hundred meters high.

Characteristic of this type of volcanism (volcanologists call it “Hawaiian”) was the picture observed during the eruption in 1959 of the side crater of a volcano called Kilauea-Iki (“Little Kilauea”). On November 14, at twenty o'clock, the pressure of compressed gases caused the first explosion, which destroyed the lava crust in the crater. The ridge of the crater, which had been inactive for ninety years, also split in ten places at once. From the cracks and holes formed in the crater, liquid lava flowed in fountains.

When the excess gas pressure subsided, all but two of the holes and cracks closed. From the remaining “windows” lava flowed, soaring to a height of sixty meters. Then another vent closed. But from the latter the fountain was now shooting up two hundred meters. By the end of the week, the height of the fountain reached four hundred meters, after which the emission of lava stopped.

Twelve days after the first active phase, Kilauea Iki erupted again. This time the fountain rose to a height of more than three hundred meters. A lava lake one hundred and thirty meters deep formed in the crater itself.

On November 29, a new rumbling column of flame and liquid lava shot up six hundred meters. It was the highest fountain observed in the entire century-long history of studying Hawaiian volcanoes.

This powerful burst marked the end of the Kilauea Iki eruption. The liquid lava of the lake was drawn into the depths by a fiery whirlpool, and part of it froze, again forming a crust at the bottom of the crater.

Then a new eruption began along the fissure zone in the southeast of the island, accompanied by the outpouring of lava and the formation of lava flows on the slopes of Kilauea. Rushing down, they burned sugar cane plantations on the coast, papaya and orange groves, and orchid plantings. They fought the fiery rivers by erecting earthen ramparts with bulldozers in their path and diverting the flow away from cultivated lands.

A chain of small craters stretched along the crack zone, which ejected steam, gases and lava into the air above the vents. Drops of lava, frozen in the air, fell to the ground in the form of long needles, the so-called hair of Pele, named after the Polynesian god of fire.

It is clear that such a spectacle cannot leave anyone indifferent. And, what is very important, you can observe lava fountains and flows of rivers of fire on Kilauea, firstly, quite regularly, and secondly, in a relatively safe environment.

A traveler who finds himself on the island of Hawaii can, if desired, go up to the Kilauea crater even by bus, since there is an asphalt road here. But it is more interesting to climb to the volcano on foot along a path laid through forests of sandalwood and tree ferns. After just a few hours of travel, you can reach the ridge of Kilauea Iki.

The picture that reveals itself is breathtaking. In the distance, steam smokes over the main crater of Halemaumau, and right under your feet is the dark gray surface of the crater lake, cut by scarlet cracks and shrouded in sulfur fumes. The greatness and formidable power that breathes into everything around us defies description. This spectacle is especially impressive at night.
Those travelers who are interested not only in geology should climb the slope of Mauna Loa. The mountain forests here are home to many unique birds, and, of course, the above-mentioned Hawaiian goose, which by the middle of the 19th century was almost completely exterminated on most of the islands of the archipelago. However, zoologists managed to organize the breeding of rare birds in zoos, and then, in the 1960s, repopulated the slopes of Mauna Loa with them. There are also rare Hawaiian mallard ducks, Hawaiian crows and the only bird of prey on the islands - the Hawaiian buzzard. Occasionally you can also see a tiny and very beautiful honeyeater or Hawaiian flower girls flickering over the meadow like butterflies. All of them are found nowhere else except the Hawaiian archipelago.

Unfortunately, goats and pigs brought to Hawaii and run wild here have caused great damage to the island's bird fauna. Some bird species disappeared completely, and only the creation of the National Park made it possible for the rest to survive. Nevertheless, lovers of wildlife will find a lot of interesting things in the green thickets covering the lower part of the giant volcanic massif. And on the coast you can find unique animals, such as the Hawaiian monk seal.

So tourists who arrive on the island have something to see and marvel at. However, the enchanting pictures of a green tropical paradise and the luxury of ocean beaches cannot, of course, overshadow the impression of the grandiose spectacle of cracks blazing with red lightning, fiery lava falls and fountains of liquid lava soaring to the height of the Ostankino TV tower.

Apparently, this is the only place on Earth where you can look so close and so directly into the bowels of our planet and hear their menacing breath.

And very close to the island of Hawaii, another natural pearl of the volcanic archipelago awaits travelers - the amazing, legendary island of Maui.

No matter where you approach this island: from the west, from the island of Molokai, from the east, from the shores of the island of Hawaii, or from the north, from the open ocean - each time you are greeted from afar by the mighty silhouette of a majestic mountain structure rising three kilometers above the island - the crater Haleakala.

It is not easy to climb - the slopes of the volcano are covered with dense thickets of tropical vegetation and scatterings of black basalt blocks, so “the ascent will take at least two days. But even those who prefer modern comfort and climb to the top by car along a winding twenty-kilometer road will remember the moment for a long time , when the endless bowl of one of the largest volcanic craters in the world suddenly opens under his feet.

Halekaala Crater was discovered in 1778 by the great navigator Cook. He mapped the volcano under its Polynesian name, which means "House of the Sun."

Residents of the Hawaiian Islands tell a legend according to which the god Maui, after whom the island is named, was once able to catch the Sun. This happened, as the legend says, due to the fact that our daylight began to be in a hurry. It ran across the sky too quickly, and the day shortened so much that one day the goddess Hinu, the mother of Maui, did not even have time to dry the blanket she had woven that morning. Angry with the Sun, she ordered her son to catch him and put an end to the inappropriate haste of the heavenly body.

Maui wove a rope from coconut fibers and hid on top of the volcano. And as soon as the first rays of the Sun appeared from behind the rocks, he tied them with a rope and caught the luminary. The captive Sun was forced to promise never to break the usual pace of movement again, and since then the day on the Hawaiian Islands has no longer been shortened. True, the inhabitants of the island of Maui, knowing the fickleness of the gods, annually made sacrifices to them, throwing delicious foods and coconuts into the crater. It was believed that Maui and Hina, who had tasted the gifts, would monitor the frivolous luminary more strictly.

Unlike its blazing neighbors, the volcanoes Mauna Loa and Kilauea on the neighboring island of Hawaii, Haleakala is now considered extinct, although it may have simply fallen asleep for a short time. The last time the volcano erupted was in 1790. Over the two centuries that have passed since then, at the bottom of a gigantic crater, the area of ​​which reaches fifty square kilometers, forests have grown in some places, and streams have made their way along the slopes, forming a small lake below. Steep basalt cliffs rise almost a kilometer above the bottom of the volcanic basin, like fortress walls.

In the northern part of the crater, local residents graze cattle on green meadows, and in the southwest there are sandy deserts, the color of which varies from light beige to dark brown and even crimson red. Among this ominous landscape, here and there multi-colored cones of secondary volcanoes rise two hundred to three hundred meters above the purple plain, creating a unique Martian landscape.

The crater itself is not round, but stretches twelve kilometers from west to east; its width from north to south is four kilometers. The volcano was once three hundred meters higher, but its top was removed during the last eruption.

The slopes of Haleakala, unlike most volcanic craters, do not look perfectly regular. They are partially destroyed and cut by deep gorges. To the east and north, at the rim of the crater, there are two huge gaps, the “gates” of Kaupo and Kulau. Along these grandiose corridors, ocean winds rush into the volcanic basin, bringing clouds and rain.

By the way, thanks to this structure of the crater, one can observe here a curious optical phenomenon described earlier in the German Harz Mountains - the so-called Brocken Ghost. The shadow of a man standing on the edge of the peak is projected enlarged onto the gray veil of clouds that fill the crater at his feet, giving the impression that some kind of giant is moving there. At one time in the Harz, such “ghosts” that appeared near Mount Brocken caused superstitious fear among local residents, who believed that witches from all over the area were gathering on the mountain for their Sabbath.

In 1960, Haleakala was declared a National Park, and now all the picturesque and unusual corners of the gigantic crater are connected by a network of special paths along which tourists can reach the most remote places of this amazing closed world and enjoy the spectacle of its many natural wonders.

The traveler will see frozen lava rivers in a giant volcanic bowl and blue-purple secondary volcanoes swelling with conical stone wigwams. He will be able to admire the iridescent red-brown-black shades interspersed with volcanic obsidian glass in the dark high cliffs made of gray layered ash.

And the most important thing is to discover an amazing plant, found only in the Haleakala crater and bearing the poetic name “silver blade”. This rare botanical miracle resembles a graying silver porcupine or some kind of ball bristling with sharp long feathers, from the middle of which rises upward a thick fleshy stem-receptacle, covered once in the entire life of the plant with a bouquet of purple flowers.

The “Silver Blade” lives only about twenty years, during which time it reaches a height of three meters. Then it blooms for a while, striking viewers with its size, colors, and aromas. Then the plant dies, and its narrow, silver, saber-shaped leaves, for which it gets its name, wither and fall off.

The wild beauty of the landscapes seen from the Haleakala ridge has repeatedly inspired artists and writers. They dedicated many works to the volcano. Among those who visited this miracle of nature on the distant Pacific archipelago were such wonderful literary artists as Mark Twain and Jack London.

Mark Twain, who visited Maui in 1866, described his ascent to the volcano in a book of memoirs about the wanderings of his youth. A cheerful group of young, cheerful adventurers climbed the slopes of Haleakala for two days to reach the top. (At that time there was not only a road to the top, but not even a tolerable trail, not to mention the fact that the first map of the volcano was drawn up three years after their visit.)

After spending the night by the fire (the temperature drops by fifteen degrees when climbing the volcano), the frozen travelers finally climbed out to the edge of the crater and stood for a long time, shocked by the view. Then youthful enthusiasm surged in their veins, and to warm up, they began to roll up to the cliff and throw down hefty blocks of basalt the size of a barrel of whiskey. Having warmed up in this way and showing the volcano their prowess, Mark Twain and his companions set off on their way back.

Now tourists climb to the top along a winding path passing through green meadows and eucalyptus groves. As a rule, they are not satisfied with the spectacle from the Kalahaku observation deck located at the top, but descend down, wanting to leave their traces both on the forest paths near the crater lake and on the volcanic sand of the desert southern regions of the crater. Besides, of course, it is impossible to leave Haleakala without seeing the legendary “silver blade” with your own eyes.

Many travelers stay overnight in the crater to admire the most impressive sight Haleakala has to offer—the sun rising over the crater's rim, framed by swirling clouds and black silhouettes of lava rocks on the ridge.

The rare combination of harshness and beauty of the volcanic landscape of Haleakala leaves no one indifferent. But the magical charm of the “House of the Sun” cannot be expressed in words - you need to experience it yourself. At one time, this was accurately noted by Jack London, who wrote after returning from the island of Maui: “Haleakala carries a special message to the human soul, a message of such beauty and miraculous power that it is impossible to receive it second-hand.”

A favorite vacation spot for many millions of tourists from Europe and America, they also remain the most dangerous on the planet. The fact is that Hawaii is the center of the largest volcanic eruptions in the northern waters of the Pacific Ocean. Thousands of tourists eager to experience natural fireworks often flock to Oahu to board planes from Honolulu to Hawi or Kona. It is there that, before the volcanic eruptions on the island of Hawaii, enterprising locals organize numerous excursions to the foot of the mountains.

The length is at least 2500 km. Moreover, they are located between 19° and 29° northern latitude. It seems that the islands do not belong to the volcanoes of the Pacific Ocean that are part of the so-called

Fire ring. Most of these volcanoes are connected to each other by deep trenches that form in those places on the ocean floor where the earth's crust moves onto the continent.

The result of such a buildup is the emergence of a natural friction process, which, in turn, causes an increase in the ambient temperature. This invariably leads to the heating of volcanoes, and then to their eruption.

In connection with the above, the question arises: why do volcanoes that are located on stationary erupt? The answer, it turns out, is simple. The islands are located directly above the hot spot of the Earth's mantle, which serves as a constant source of high temperature. Scientists claim that there are not so few similar heat sources on our planet: about 30. All of them are distinguished by their immobility and constant action. This means that during the movement of the earth’s crust, such a heat source creates several active volcanoes on it.

In the same way, not only the volcanoes on, but also Hawaii itself were formed. In the western Pacific Ocean, the earth's crust gradually shifts westward. At the same time, scientists were able to calculate that the crust had already advanced 2414 km. Therefore, we can assume the nature of . Geologists say that all the islands are ancient extinct and currently active volcanoes. The oldest ones in terms of time of occurrence are in the west, and the youngest are in the east (the island of Hawaii).

Several telescopes were installed on Mauna Kea, allowing scientists to observe the movements of stars, planets and various cosmic bodies.