Our first destination was the newly formed land off the south coast of the island. Our route took us over the Macadamia Nut Farm – endearingly known locally as the “Mac Nut” Farm below Mauna Loa. The Macadamia Nut is one of Hilo’s major agricultural exports along with papaya, orchids and beef. The Macadamia Nut trees are protected by tall Norfolk Spruce to prevent the nuts from being blown to the ground before they can be harvested.
Lava has been seeping from Mauna Loa since the early 90s (I believe but this needs to be checked) and all of the land that you can see in the first photo has been produced since then. The most recent heavy lava flow was nine months ago and created the new land between the shelf that I have indicated in the photo and the sea.
Believe it or not there were vestiges of roads on some parts of the land below us and at one time there were plans to build some 1,000 homes on this newly formed land. They only lasted some 5 years before a fresh lava flow burnt them away.
There are still squatter settlements on this new land but to claim the right to buy and build from the Government you have to be resident on the site for 3 years and of course there is no guarantee or insurance that your home will not be destroyed by future lava flows. There seemed to be plenty of individuals ready to take this risk.
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