The Kalapana Lava Flow, Hawaii, from "Thirty Shades of Coffee"

All that's missing is the usual pack of Jocks, having a laugh, having a beer...

‘Greetings. Grab a hot chocolate… trail mix… coke…’ The guide was welcoming, right enough. ‘Just waiting for the last two to arrive, and we’ll start the walk. Wait in the shade there, if the sun’s too hot on you just now.’

‘I’m okay,’ I told him, looking round: very modern timber two-story in the middle of a black-twisted lava flow. Only went cold a couple of years ago, in jagged-edged sections where the surface had crumpled and broken up; and sheets that look like heaps of ropes spread across the ground. Sun wasn’t so hot then; lower in the sky.

‘I’m good,’ says Tamala, my travel friend. ‘This place looks fine.’

‘The cabin? New build. My old place is buried twenty feet below us. Overwhelmed by the last lava flow.’

‘Hoping for better luck this time, huh? Sure took some finding out here.’

‘Yeah – the trail’s kinda dusty, and the Rangers won’t let us put signs up because it’s within the Park. But we’re the only building out here just yet. Half of Kalapana District got lava-flooded.’ He waved around at the barren landscape, turning dull reddish-brown in the late sun, and went off to greet the last two arrivals as they turned into the roughly bull-dozed parking lot.

‘It’s just mile after mile of bare lava,’ I said to Tamala, helping myself to a can of cola. ‘I been so looking forward to this trek.’ Practically the highlight of my Hawaii trip – a hike to see the red-hot fresh-flowing lava up close.

‘Welcome all,’ he’s gathering us around. ‘Thanks for coming to the best place to commence your trek across the lava field. The intention is to see the current molten lava flows. Bright and hot, close-up and personal, in the early-evening dark.’

He pointed inland, about a mile away, where the land rose suddenly and steeply. ‘That’s the Pali cliffs. Beyond them is the Puʻu ʻŌʻō volcano, and it’s still erupting. But the lava doesn’t come flooding over the rim of the crater: it runs into caves in the crater walls. Underground, it stays hot for miles, in tunnels beneath the old surface flows. Till it gets down here, near the sea, and comes oozing and bursting up before your eyes. Then it weaves and meanders along the surface. Wrinkling up and spitting at you as it cools and blackens.’

He was playing to his audience, alright, with bunches of actions and sound effects. ‘The streams come dribbling and drooling and slurping all around you. So you gotta be reeeal careful out there, Okay? Okay – let’s be going, people.’

A dozen of us started walking, each with two flashlights, water, boots, long trousers, hard hats, walking pole, first aid plasters, nibbles… and Boze the guide with a huge rucksack packed with lord-alone-knows-what.

It was a long, hot hike. Rough, and difficult in places, with razor-edged rocks, loose boulders, deep patches of pea-sized pebbles, vertical climbs where great slabs had been up-ended. It became progressively more awkward as the light level fell, and as tiredness set in.

Three twenties-ish Americans were fooling about, throwing bits of rock at each other, shrieking and high-fiving. No idea of decorum. ‘Typical men,’ I said to Tamala. ‘Archetypal Yanks… over-hyped and big mouths.’

It was well over two hours solid rough hiking to get there over all this jagged, rocky land. And it was hot, which was part of the reason for being in Hawaii, of course.

‘Righty-ho, folks,’ Boze calls. ‘Stay close together now, dark’s coming on, and we’re getting close. You’ll see the glow soon.’

Five minutes further, and we’re seeing the dull orange light ahead, just as the daylight was fading right off. Boze stopped us and went ahead. Another five minutes and he was back. ‘It’s changing every day. Have to figure out a route. This way. Stay in line. Stay close.’

We followed dutifully across these twists of rock-rope and smooth bits and jagged edges. Except the redneck threesome just had to go their own way, jumping over deep cracks and pushing each other. ‘They get over-excited, too,’ I mentioned to Tamala.

Then. Right in front of us. Not six feet away. The first of the flowing molten lava. A stream of it, three feet wide and orangey-red, with glowing bubbles of brilliant orange streaks oozing from beneath. ‘It’s like a caterpillar,’ Tamala said, ‘rolling along in huge wrinkles and ribbons.’

‘Look at that!’ The stream suddenly flooded out sideways, and extended, then cooled and blackened, crackled and spat… We stood there and stared and took millions of pics.

The real darkness settled on us, and I realised we were surrounded by glowing rocks. From beneath almost every mound of cooler, black lava there still glowed the orange heat of the new lava.

‘It’s flowing slowly right under our feet.’ I’m kneeling down to take a close-up down a crack into the fire.

‘It’s squeezing under the surface.’

‘Like the devil’s toothpaste in two-foot wide runnels.’

‘Except they sometimes pause in a glowing, swelling lump that grows till it bursts open again and goes off in a different direction.’

‘That one’s spreading out like a fan, wrinkling along in great curves down the slope…’

‘The cliff edge is just down that way.’

Everybody was content with wowing and jeezing and taking photos, except our happy threesome, who had to push their sticks into the lava to see how quickly they burst into flames. Or to get a glob to take home, or to hurl at each other. Such fun they had, taking running jumps over the brightest, runniest, widest streams. Pushing each other, seeing who could put their hand the closest. The guide’s warnings unheeded in laughing dismissals.

We very carefully clambered down the slope a bit, closer to the cliff edge. And saw almost directly beneath us, where the main bulk of the underground lava poured like fiery cascades down the cliff face. Or spouted under high pressure, like sideways fountains, well clear of the face. They gushed directly into the sea, exploding in blazing, sizzling bombs and billows of steam. The wind kept whirling the steam round in mini tornadoes that went drifting off into the darkness. A tourist boat was revealed down there, so close, being bombarded with the fizzing lava blobs.

Naturally, Jack, Jim and Joe had to stand right on the very edge; on an overhang that looked so fragile. Boze warned them about frequent collapses of such promontories. ‘You wouldn’t like a scalding death fifty feet below,’ he called across to the deaf trio.

I had my camera going the whole time – if the ledge gave way, I wanted it on film. If they jumped and landed in the lava, I wanted that too. If the boat got pushed by wind and waves under the lava falls, and caught on fire, that was a must-film, as well. Jeez, the hits I’d get on YouTube.

It was an amazing couple of hours while we poked around out there at the live flows. I was in total awe of the whole experience – the glowing moving lava surrounding us. Never, ever, to be forgotten. Especially with all the photos and video clips I’d taken. Including quite a few of the idiotic threesome and their moronic antics. So it was a disappointment when we had to leave; also a relief that no-one had, actually, been injured – because an injury out here would be a nasty one; and it was a long way back.

So Boze called us all together for a swift few words. ‘Stay close in the dark; be very careful where you place our feet; don’t jump into the unknown; use your flashlights; stay with your partner.’

Turning to go to Tamala, flashlight in one hand, camera taking the last moments on video setting, my foot rolled on a stick, or loose rock. ‘Yoik!’ I toppled off-balance, still clutching my camera and torch, bumped into the person in front of me and bounced sideways. Straight into the run of lava that I’d been filming seconds before.

I think I yelped on the way down. Certainly, I screamed when my hand plunged into six-hundred degree molten lava. Instant all-over agony, and I was definitely shrieking in a panic as I scrabbled and rolled and pulled and knew it was going to be terrible and couldn’t believe it had happened. And got myself away onto my knees. So fast. Completely from nowhere. A foot-slip on something loose and unseen. An instant tumble. My hand and wrist blazing, agonised. A red black mass where my forearm had been moments earlier.

Voices around me in the blackness and torchlights. I’m being pulled, getting me away.

I know I was gasping and going, ‘No no no…’ My fingers would be in there somewhere, inside the black fire. They were in there, in agony. I was looking, staring in complete unbelief. A great glowing blackening mass instead of a hand and arm.

All round me in the glowing dark, everyone else gasping and whispering and, ‘Omigod.’

‘God, poor girl…’

‘Omigod.’

‘God, that looks terrible.’

‘Omigod.’

The way back was utter torment. They couldn’t break the hardening lava free, so my hand cooked in there. The pain was incredible. Boze had morphine. He was on his cell. They’d have an emergency vehicle meet us as close as possible. The solid weight of rock where my arm had been. My life would be changed…

I’ve lost my hand… an arm…

Tamala carried my little backpack.

Boze stayed close, indicating the best places for a foot among the rocks and cracks and loose black gravel.

Others pointing their spare torches in front of me, calling and encouraging, offering drinks and chocolates.

It was the three Yanks who did most – pouring their water on the rock mitten to cool it quicker. Lifting me, carrying me, or supporting me on the parts where I had to move myself to climb or drop down.

They were incredible, actually. Brilliant. Student doctors. They gave me the morphine. Wrapped me up. And carried me, talked to me, gave me water. They got me back. Joked about being armless… harmless… get it?

Kept talking with me and making me say things. ‘Come on, girl; you got to laugh.’ It was just to stop me going into shock, I know.

But damn-me – they kept me going and let me sob and whimper and stumble and lean on them and they were amazing. All that way… Hours, it seemed like. Total nightmare. Desperately wanting to get the lava mass smashed off my hand and arm.

Do I still have a hand? Any fingers? Or just blackened bone?

Am I still holding the camera in there?

Did I catch all the action?

Will the chip be okay?

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