Our first stop was at Rainbow Falls, inside the city of Hilo. The falls were pretty significant and beautiful.
The tour took us to Papua, and the on towards the coast where a flow about 10 years earlier had covered the road on its way to the ocean. The bus stopped, we got off, and walked across the road and up a few stairs. Wow!! The entire landscape was black with lava. 
Unbelievable to see lava at all, but seeing hundreds of acres undulating over the landscape was mind-blowing.
The group walked almost a half mile from the road to the ocean on lava, never touching anything but lava. It wasn't smooth--it had piled up in places, had split to format crevasses, and swirled to format rainbow- shaped ripples. 
The texture was very rough, with tiny holes through the lava, like cinder. Although about 10 years old, there had been enough time for some plant life to generate, small palm trees, some grasses, and a few other hardy plants. We learned that lava is very nutrient-rich and that plants grow very well in the stuff.
At the ocean, the "sand" was totally black. Actually, there was no sand at all. Ground up lava coated the beach just as if it were sand. Pretty neat stuff.
Back at the road, to illustrate that life in the area is low key, there were two dogs sleeping in the road, too lazy to move as we walked by.
The bus went along the coastline of the island, allowing us to see different lava types and the overall beauty of the island.
While the bus made a number of other stops along the way, but none were as exciting and interesting as the lava itself. In Papua, on the way Bach to the ship, we did get within about 500 feet of the newest flow where it crossed a street. 
But we didn't get to see the flow.
Back at the ship, we rested a while, cleaned up a bit, had a good dinner, watched some good entertainment, and called it a night.
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