This is an isolated and stunningly beautiful stretch of coastline carpeted with forests of young coconut palms, beach grasses, sprigs of ferns, and other pioneer species popping up out of the cracked rock. The onshore breeze carries a faint whiff of salt that grows stronger as hikers near the shoreline, where the rumble of crashing waves can be heard long before they are seen. The loose red rock shifts about underfoot with a satisfying crunch until it is replaced by black sand upon reaching the beach, where the new palm forest falls away and reveals the full ocean vista.

From this vantage point, the horizon is an impossibly straight line, separating a cloudy baby-blue sky from the darker bluish-grey ocean churning about below. Jagged bluffs of black rock border the rugged beach on both sides – headlands which the powerful incoming surf strike first in mesmerizing explosions of white sea spray. Although the word “beach” can be found in the name of this place, swimming here is exceptionally hazardous and generally frowned upon by locals who don’t want the bad publicity of hapless swimmers being swept out to sea and rescued by the Coast Guard. So, play it safe while visiting Kaimu and stay out of the water.

The hazardous nature of the coast here is easy to notice on high surf days, when big rolling waves make their way into the beach and toss about the round lava stones lining the shore. This whirlpool of tumbling rocks the size of engine blocks and violently rushing water makes going for a dip pretty uninviting, in tandem with the grinding sound of the rocks smashing against each other in the fray.

“New” Kaimu Beach Was Once “Old” Kaimu Beach

The stretch of rocky, desolate shoreline along Big Island’s Kalapana Coast known among locals as the “new” Kaimu Black Sand Beach is indeed just that – new.

It looked much different three decades ago, when it was a picturesque crescent-shaped stretch of black sand, fringed by a long line of mature coconut groves that cast shade on the beach and gave it an iconic, postcard quality. This was the “old” Kaimu Beach; a much beloved local swimming hole where generations of native Hawaiians and island-born haoles (foreigners) learned to surf, paddle and fish among the turquoise waters of the bay, where an offshore reef of sunken lava boulders tempered the force of incoming waves and made for an unmatched surf break.

The beach was a windswept, laid-back destination nestled in the jungle, its popularity amplified by the fact that Puna District is notoriously lacking in safe swimming and surfing spots. It was the local ocean access for multiple different communities found along the Kalapana Coast and farther inland, and one of the natural features driving the growth of its nearest town, Kaimu (kie-moo) – which had been a sleepy old-time Hawaii fishing village for centuries. These days, Kaimu Bay and its associated beach are remembered fondly by locals living in the area who are old enough to have seen that iconic palm-lined crescent of black sand with their own eyes so many years ago.

Those who remember the beach’s formed glory are the ones who lived through its destruction, when in 1990 lava flows from an eruption of Kilauea Volcano starting spilling out of a new fissure. This sent an avalanche of molten rock tumbling down the mountain’s flanks towards the villages of Kaimu and Kalapana. Entire neighborhoods were completely wiped out save for a few surviving lots, including the subdivisions of Kalapana Gardens and the nearby Royal Gardens. The lava flow destroyed more than 150 homes in less than a year of activity, and covered cars, parks, stores, utility lines and roads beneath a sea of black rock that measures nearly 100 feet deep in some places.

The charging red hot rock met the ocean at last and quickly proceeded to destroy the world-famous Old Kaimu Beach and fill in Kaimu Bay, creating a large swath of new coastline that is almost a quarter-mile wide at its thickest point. By early 1991, the rogue flow had petered out thanks to new lava tubes opening in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, which diverted the flow away from Kalapana and back into uninhabited land. The eruption would continue for many more years, occasionally creeping back across the boundary and causing more havoc, like in July 2010 when lava consumed a home in the Kalapana Gardens neighborhood that was only five years old at the time.

For years after the eruption, the inundated land lay almost completely vacant, looking like a scraggly moonscape of shiny cracked black rock. But some families chose to stay and live on the outskirts of the lavafield, building small off-grid structures and planting the vast stretches of desolate land with ti plants, young coconut palms, breadfruit, papaya trees and many other pioneer plants. Over the years, the Kalapana and Kaimu communities have revived, and have become a destination of sorts for the burgeoning Big Island cottage industry of “lava tourism”.

The recovery of the area is perhaps best exemplified by the main commercial hub of Kalapana known as “Uncle Robert’s” – an open-air market and music venue space at the very end of the road that hosts raucous Wednesday night parties featuring the beloved house band called the Kalapana Awa Band. Attached to the market space is a large parking lot where food trucks usually set up on busy days, with a convenience store at the far end called Kaimu Korner selling beer, groceries and pre-made food. Adjacent to the store is the House of Fire Gallery, an art studio and showroom featuring many, many pieces inspired by volcanoes, lava and the Hawaiian fire goddess Pele. 

This entire complex, including the gallery and store, is simply known as “Uncle’s” among locals, named in honor of the beloved patriarch of old Kalapana Village, Robert Keli’iho’omalu. It is “Uncle Robert’s” children who run the day-to-day operations of the market these days, and several of his sons are members of the Kalapana Awa Band. 

How to Get to Kaimu Black Sand Beach

To reach the parking lot and trailhead for the quarter-mile hike out to Kaimu Black Sand Beach, just use Highway 130 coming from the small East Hawaii hippie town of Pahoa and follow signs for Kalapana. Roughly ten miles outside of Pahoa along a road that gradually slopes downhill to the coast, a sign will appear that the highway is ending.

Here there will be a left turn lane, and taking this left will bring drivers to a “T” in the road after heading a few hundred more feet downhill past a roadside water filling station on the left. From this intersection, going right will take visitors another quarter-mile to the main market complex’s parking lot. At around 6:00pm or 7:00pm on Wednesday evenings during tourism’s high season, there will already be a long stretch of cars parked along the shoulder of this road leading down to Uncle Robert’s.

On every other day of the week, this intersection is usually deserted except for an occasional fruit seller, and parking spaces are plentiful both near the market and the convenience store out back.

From the main market parking lot, the trailhead leading to Kaimu Black Sand Beach is marked by a small sign leading up a rock staircase with a bulky stainless steel handrail, but it can be easy to miss. So, if you’re having some trouble finding where the trail to the beach starts, just ask around at the market, which features a restaurant and smoothie shack that are open every day but Sunday and run by friendly, laid-back locals who are usually happy to see any customers at all.

The best way for visitors to experience the whole Kalapana-Kaimu area in a single afternoon is to show up early on a sunny Wednesday around 3:00pm or 4:00pm, easily find parking in front of the market, pick up some drinks at Kaimu Korner, and then make their way to the trailhead and hike down to the beach to watch the waves crash. 

Right at sunset, they can make their way back to the market area since the beach trail can be a bit hazardous to walk in the dark. Then find something that looks good for dinner from the many different food stalls serving up everything from potstickers to spring rolls to tacos to vegan cuisine. After one or two warm-up acts, the Kalapana Awa Band will take the stage and they will typically play until closing. 

Above the cloud line, the night air becomes cold and clear, with visibility no longer compromised by tiny droplets of water suspended in the air. This feature, along with Hawaii’s famously dark skies and low global latitude, makes for an ideal stargazing environment – quite possibly the brightest and clearest view of the heavens to be found anywhere in the United States. The grouping of massive telescopes at the mountain’s summit is a testament to this, with mind-boggling amounts of resources spent assembling these sci-fi looking domes in a wholly inhospitable environment of desolate, ancient high-altitude lavafield.

From the summit, a sea of clouds can be seen obscuring the lower flanks of the mountain, with occasional appearances of Mauna Kea’s neighboring volcano Mauna Loa across the great divide, making it seem as if two towering mountain tops were suspended in the sky. Far out on the horizon, it looks like the view from outside an airplane window – a carpet of puffy white clouds and stunningly blue sky and nothing else. The land at the summit is reddish gray and thoroughly weathered, with great rolling hills of cracked rock navigated by a road that loops up and down many switchbacks. It looks like a moonscape at first glance, only betrayed by the cluster of a dozen towering domed buildings seeming to spring out of the earth.

These are the telescopes – funded and maintained by eleven different nations – that have made Mauna Kea the global mecca of land-based astronomical research, with their facilities located within a more than 500-acre “special land use zone” comprising part of the much larger Mauna Kea Science Reserve. Incredibly, the grounds of the telescope complex are open to the public during daylight hours, although the buildings themselves are strictly off-limits to visitors. All mountain-goers have to do to reach this fascinating spot is check in at the Visitor’s Center and ensure that their vehicle is capable of four-wheel drive. 

The gravel road of steep switchbacks connecting the Visitor’s Center with the summit complex is less than nine miles long, but takes nearly half an hour to safely drive. Taking the time to make that extra drive up the hairpin turns above the shrub line is worth it in the end, though, as the full panorama of sky finally comes into view at the top, offering a spectacle that many visitors to Big Island don’t ever get to see.

The Visitor’s Center offers an impressive range of educational models and informational displays, airing videos about the history of the observatories and its myriad research programs. The geology, ecology and cultural importance of Mauna Kea are common topics of the exhibits, as well as more general info about astronomy, volcanology and the formation of the Hawaiian Islands. Unlike the summit area, the Center is open past sundown, which tends to be a busy time due to the several small telescopes – some up to 16 inches in diameter – that get deployed in its courtyard for visitors to use. Peering through the viewfinders on clear nights, first-time astronomers can see planets, star clusters, galaxies, nebulae and other other-worldly looking features of the night sky.

These impromptu nightly stargazing programs are usually run by a staff member or volunteer who walks gazers through a constellation tour, sometimes using a laser pointer to direct their attention to specific objects. This spot is also a popular haunt for amateur astronomers, who make the long drive up the mountain just before dark to set up their own telescopes in the same courtyard area and scan the sky for familiar sights.

Visitors to Mauna Kea who are planning on making the extra trip up to the summit should keep in mind that its strongly advisable to spent at least half an hour (or three to four hours to be even safer) at the Visitor Center’s halfway point in order to acclimatize to the high elevation. Altitude sickness is a real and potentially life-threatening hazard present on the mountain, and the risk is significantly heightened when planning to go higher than the Center. So, come prepared to take a rest stop before climbing the final section, and familiarize yourself with the symptoms of altitude sickness just in case you or someone in your party begins to feel sick.

Hawaiians’ Sacred Ground, Useful Rocks, And An Ecological Challenge

In the ancient Hawaiian religion, the summits of Big Island’s mountains are considered sacred. For generations, a law existed in old-time Hawaii that stipulated only high-ranking members of royalty may visit the top of Mauna Kea, as by being the tallest of the island’s five volcanoes, it was also seen as the holiest. They considered the summit area to be the “region of the gods”, and a place where benevolent spirits lived. In the Hawaiian language Mauna Kea is short for “Mauna a Wakea”, meaning “white mountain”, named so for its snow-covered summit in the wintertime.

Commoners lived on the flanks of the mountain and depended on its large swaths of forests for food, and on its deposits of hard volcanic basalt rock for tool production. Europeans began to arrive to the island in earnest by the late 18^th Century, who introduced cattle, sheep and game animals, many of which escaped their enclosures and became feral, causing significant damage over time to the mountain’s fragile ecological balance.

Nearly a millennia ago, ancient Hawaiians established quarries high up on the mountain to mine exceptionally hard basalt rock found in deposits in areas where red hot rock met glacial ice and quickly cooled. Volcanic glass was collected to make blades and fishing gear, and this industry was going strong until European and American-made steel tools began to replace them wholesale.

How To Get to Mauna Kea

Reaching Mauna Kea’s Visitor’s Center and summit telescope complex can be a bit tricky for first-time visitors to Big Island. Regardless of whether you are coming from Hilo or Kona, though, you will end up on the Daniel K. Inouye Highway, otherwise known as Saddle Road or Highway 200. 

Visitors coming from Kona-side will pass by the Pohakuloa Training Area and its extensive stretch of military troop housing and support buildings before reaching the left turn onto Mauna Kea Access Road. A few miles before the turn, drivers will pass the Gilbert Kahele Recreation Area with picnic areas, an outdoor jungle gym, modern restroom facilities and fantastic views of the mountain. 

After turning left onto Mauna Kea Access Road (right if coming from Hilo), follow it for roughly six miles keeping left at the fork and following signs for the Visitor’s Center, officially known as the Onizuka Center for International Astronomy, which is open seven days a week during business hours, and usually stays open for a few hours after sunset to accommodate its free stargazing program.

This is where the paved road ends, and beyond the Center the route to the summit is a winding stretch of gravel switchbacks that runs another roughly nine miles before ending at the telescope complex loop. It’s important to keep in mind that occasionally the summit road is closed beyond the Visitor’s Center due to bad weather, especially in the winter. So, it’s smart to check to see if the road is open prior to planning a trip to the summit to avoid a big disappointment. Also, those who do opt for a day trip to see the telescopes need to begin the descent back to the Visitor’s Center after sunset as nighttime at the summit is when the researchers work.

All of the buildings at the top are off-limits with the exception of the Subaru Telescope, which does offer pre-planned tours during the daytime on a limited availability basis. It’s also crucial to dress warmly if you plan on sticking around for sunset, since ambient temperatures can drop to as low as 30 degrees Fahrenheit. Most rental car companies on the island have their customers sign paperwork promising that they won’t drive their rentals beyond the Visitor’s Center due to the hazardous nature of the road and other liabilities. If you plan on renting a car on Big Island and taking it up Mauna Kea, make sure to read the fine print of your rental contract to see if there are similar restrictions. 

The beach is found within the much larger Hapuna Beach State Recreation Area, consisting of more than 60 acres of scraggly, windswept coastal land offering hiking and camping activities in addition to swimming, sunbathing, snorkeling, barbecuing and boogie boarding along the beachfront. Hapuna’s reputation on the island is legendary; locals and visitors alike consistently rank it as one of the best white sand beaches in West Hawaii, and compare it favorably to the white sands of islands like Kauai where the wide band of inviting-looking sand the color of raw sugar hugs the shore and seems to go on for miles in both directions.

Hapuna is about the closest thing to this travel brochure vista that Big Island has to offer, considering that more than half of its coastline is made up of unforgiving black lava cliffs crashed against by towering, angry waves. Its grounds are well-maintained and handsomely landscaped, with several square open-air gazebos crammed with picnic tables and positioned next to barbecue pits. The green-roofed structures are expansive; each one large enough to seat several different family groups at once. Gently curving concrete sidewalks running parallel to the beach link the gazebos with stands of public showers and shaded grassy areas ideal for unfurling a picnic blanket.

Like a handful of other popular Kona-side beaches, Hapuna is divided into a southern “public” side and a northern “private” side. The private end is mostly used by guests staying at the adjacent hotels and resorts, including the Hapuna Prince Hotel, The Westin Hapuna Beach Resort, and the Hapuna Beach Residences at Mauna Kea Resort. These are the sprawling multi-story white buildings jutting out onto the bluff which seem to make their way into many of the most iconic photos of the beach. 

These accommodations provide lounge chairs and parasols for their guests, which can usually be spotted set out on the sand in neat rows or bunched together for storage. “Public” side visitors to Hapuna can still explore any part of the beach they want as long as they respect the hotel facilities and keep in mind that the inland areas north of the State Recreation Area boundary is technically private property. There is no hard boundary between the two sections of the beach, though, and hotel guests regularly wander down to the southern end while swimmers and boogie boarders often set out in search of more ideal waves up north. 

Beach conditions at Hapuna change dramatically between summer and winter, where from October through April large waves coming from the northwest charge into the bay and crash on the beach in spectacular fashion, drawing hordes of surfers and boogie boarders eager to ride the swelling waves. This is also the time of year where the beach narrows significantly due to shifting sand, contrasting with the summer months where it grows to its maximum width in or around the month of September. Waves and rip currents are calmer in the summer, too, when it’s typical for the beach break at Hapuna to be little more than a gentle, soothing lapping. Still, lifeguards are on-duty at Hapuna every day of the year and have made many daring rescues during periods of high surf.

However, due to its immense length there are several blind spots along the formidable stretch of Kua Bay sand, especially at either end where rocky outcrops provide ideal snorkeling grounds. Snorkeling isn’t as popular at Hapuna as other world-renown Big Island underwater adventure spots like Two Step at Honaunau Bay, but mask and fin-clad swimmers can still by spotted on most days plying the waters just offshore of the rocky cliffs looking for colorful tropical fish, cities of delicate coral and the occasional Hawaiian green sea turtle. Water visibility can sometimes be poor right offshore due to suspended beach sand and a layer of freshwater supplied by nearby springs which floats on the surface of the seawater. So don’t be afraid to swim out a bit to get a better view, at the same time keeping in mind that lifeguards can’t easily monitor the beach’s two farthest flanks.

A-Frame Camping and Hiking The Ala Kahakai Trail

Set just a few hundred feet inland from Hapuna Beach is a sprawling campground of sturdily built A-Frame structures available for use by campers. They are fully enclosed with bug netting, include sleeping platforms and picnic tables, and feature outdoor cooking facilities and communal bathrooms with cold showers. Each A-Frame can accomodate four people relatively comfortably, and costs around $50 per night with reservations that must be made at least a week in advance. During high tourism season it’s not uncommon for every A-Frame to be booked weeks – if not months – in advance, so it’s smart to plan ahead for a camping trip at Hapuna. 

Another great aspect of the recreation area is its proximity to the Ala Kahakai hiking trail. This is a nearly 16-mile-long loop following ancient Hawaiian footpaths that lead along the rugged, parched old lavafields of Big Island’s Kohala Coast. It takes hikers past some of the most pristine shoreline on the island, although in some places it’s poorly marked and even more poorly maintained. It’s important to exercise extreme caution at certain places along the route where the path skirts perilously close to steep sea cliffs.

Food and drinks are available within Hapuna State Recreation Area at the Three Frogs Cafe, which is found a little ways up from the beach area and open from 10am to 4pm daily. It’s a good place to grab a light lunch or snack after a long morning of swimming and boogie boarding, and it even offers rental items like snorkeling gear, beach chairs and parasols.

The only downside of Hapuna is that it can get exceedingly crowded on holidays or weekends during high tourism season. If you happen to visit the beach on a very busy day and decide that you want to escape the crowds, just a few miles south of the popular half-mile stretch of white sand is Beach 69 – a secluded and rarely crowded swimming hole shaded by a string of giant kiawe trees growing in stands along the shore. This smaller and more tranquil spot is great for swimming, and offers arguably better snorkeling ground than Hapuna itself. Beach 69 is covered in-depth with its own dedicated article on this website.

How To Get to Kua Bay

Hapuna Beach State Recreation Area, Kua Bay, is easily accessed via Highway 19, otherwise known as Mamalahoa Highway, roughly 30 miles north of downtown Kona and 3 miles south of the tiny Big Island port town of Kawaihae. Coming from Kona, there will be a left turn lane and sign for Hapuna Beach Road at approximately Mile Marker 70. Turn onto Hapuna Beach Road and continue down the hill toward the ocean for less than half a mile until the road turns into the patchy and potholed Old Puako Road. In another hundred feet there will be a right-hand turn into a large parking lot and signs for Hapuna Beach. 

Right at the entrance to the parking lot is a manned gate station where state park rangers collect parking and entrance fees. In general, entrance fees are around $5 per person and $10 per vehicle. Hawaii residents with a valid State ID or driver’s license can enter and park for free. However, it’s not uncommon to see the guardhouse closed and the gate left open, letting visitors drive past without making contact with any park rangers or paying any fees. There doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to when the gate station is occupied or not, so it’s best to come prepared to pay and hope that simply no one’s there. Park at the top of the hill and walk down the wide paved road past the green-roofed pavilions and barbecue pits to get to the beach.

Open fires, consumption of alcohol, pets, use of drones, and harassing wildlife are banned at Hapuna, with a small army of four-wheeler-riding park rangers keen on enforcing the rules and keeping everyone safe. There’s also nighttime security patrols that make sure only registered campers remain at the park after dark. Hapuna Beach State Recreation Area is open from 7:00am to 6:45pm daily for day-use visitors.

For those not wanting to wholly depend on Three Frogs Cafe for snacks and picnic supplies while at the park, the nearby town of Kawaihae has a handful of humble grocery stores but no supermarket. The Foodland supermarket in the medium-size cowboy town of Waimea roughly 10 miles east of Kawaihae is the closest spot to pick up a broader variety of picnic foods, drinks and beach gear, with a great range of restaurants and coffeeshops found in the same commercial center as the supermarket

Spencer is one of the northernmost white sand beaches on the island, and a welcome reprieve from the otherwise rocky and unforgiving coast of its North Kohala district neighbors. It essentially marks the transition point where Kona’s sprawling, iconic, and picturesque shoreline of sandy bays and turquoise water that stretches for dozens of miles north of the city turns into the wild and rugged coast of the island’s northern flanks leading to the quaint rainswept town of Hawi (ha-vee). 

It’s the last installment in a line of fully-outfitted beach parks that stretches along a length of the island’s western side, offering visitors a grand opportunity to explore Kona’s legendary beaches by simply driving up the highway a few miles at a time from one beach park to the next. Similar to other spots along this line, Spencer Beach offers modern amenities like restrooms, public showers, drinking water stations – even a large covered pavilion filled with picnic tables that includes electrical outlets in the walls for charging phones, lights and maybe even a crockpot.

Then there are the long, curving concrete sidewalks that skirt around the bay delivering beach-goers to the park’s different areas, including a large sloping lawn of green grass dotted with beat-up looking barbecue pits across the way from a well-maintained fenced basketball court. The ball court essentially marks the center of the park, with two distinctly different camping areas on either flank and a wide, flat sandy beach that’s ideal for setting up volleyball nets. Then there are the kayaks, outrigger canoes and stand-up paddle boards employed by the paddlers making the rounds just offshore – these watercraft can usually be spotted stashed in bunches taking up a seldom-used corner of the parking lot.

Snorkeling is a popular pastime at the park thanks to its stretch of shallow reef just offshore that tempers the force of incoming waves and slows down otherwise immensely strong currents. This makes for a shallow, gently sloping body of typically placid water, with crashing waves offshore finally coming in to the beach as little more than a soothing lapping. Groups of reef explorers clad in their fins and facemasks can usually be spotted out in the snorkeling grounds plying the seafloor of coral-clad submerged rocks looking for colorful tropical fish, eels, turtles and octopus. 

However, visitors should keep in mind that near constant ship activity in the nearby Kawaihae Harbor can sometimes send murky water into the bay, cutting down visibility and making it hard to spot the schools of reef fish. So, plan to snorkel at Spencer Park on a day with ideal ocean conditions, or opt to go to another inarguably better spot in West Hawaii like the much-loved Two Step at Honaunau Bay – consistently ranked among the best snorkeling experiences on the island.

The resident lifeguard tower made of molded white plastic and stainless steel railings adds a degree of safety for newbie swimmers and those trying out snorkeling, although on some days the structure is inexplicably unmanned. For those wanting to play it safe and stay close to the tower while enjoying the warm, calm water of the bay, it’s easy to find upon arriving to the park: just look for the stand of several large kiawe (key-ah-vay) trees in the center of the beach with the tower tucked into the shade beneath them and surrounded by a scattering of picnic tables.

Camping is available at the Spencer Beach Park by permit only, and costs roughly $20 per adult per night. Due to the park’s popularity with locals and tour groups, it can get very busy on weekends and holidays with no vacancy available at the various campsites, although this doesn’t happen very often especially during tourism’s off-season. Safety can be an issue at many Big Island beach parks, especially those offering overnight camping, and thankfully Spencer enforces an all-hours ban on alcohol consumption, with a team of security guards that conducts sweeps around the park grounds throughout the night to ensure no campers are being disturbed.

The County of Hawaii uses an online reservation system to collect camping fees and reserve sites for visitors at spots like Spencer Beach Park. Visit the website hawaiicounty.ehawaii.gov/camping and follow the prompts to complete a reservation with a debit or credit card. Discounted camping rates for Hawaii residents are available with a valid State of Hawaii ID or driver’s license. 

Security staff also enforce a “no re-entry” policy at the park, where the main gate is locked at 9:00pm and remains closed until 6:00am daily. This provides an added layer of safety, preventing the arrival of hordes of loud drunken partiers in the middle of the night. Keeping this policy in mind, campers should make sure they are set up with all necessary supplies before the gate is locked for the night. Exceptions to this rule are made for medical emergencies and other unforeseen circumstances, but it’s still possible that even with a legitimate excuse the guards will still not let you back in. No camping is allowed in the pavilions, as they are intended for day use only – these can be reserved for special functions with a separate permit.

Who Was Samuel Spencer?

The beach park’s namesake – Samuel M. Spencer – served as a judge and chairman of the Hawaii County Board of Supervisors from 1893 to 1944, back when the island chain was still a U.S. territory. During his life, Spencer worked hard to develop the North Kohala Coast, and served as a Postmaster at the town of Waimea’s post office. The postal name of the town is “Kamuela”, which means Samuel in Hawaiian, and is named in honor of its legendary hometown political figure. He’s also remembered for using his position as county chairman to help improve access to Waipio Valley – one of the most spectacular and breathtaking areas of natural beauty on the island.

The famed politician died without ever having set foot on the beach park named in his honor. Midway through his life, in the summer of 1935, Spencer planted one of the Banyan tree saplings lining the looping coastal road running along Hilo’s Waiakea Peninsula known as Banyan Drive. This leafy waterfront route is regarded as the city’s “Walk of Fame”, and features what are today towering banyans planted by celebrities and notable locals of the era including Hollywood directors, sports legends, music pioneers, and influential politicians like Spencer. Small hand-carved wooden placards adorn each massive tree stating which famous person put them in the ground nearly a century ago.

How To Get There

Spencer Beach Park is located at the end of Spencer Beach Park Road, which juts off from Highway 270 immediately south of the small Big Island port town of Kawaihae (kah-vie-high). Follow Spencer Beach Park Road for roughly half a mile, passing the entrance to Puukohola Heiau National Historic Site along a narrow road that winds downhill through several switchbacks to the seashore. 

This sightseeing attraction midway to the beach is comprised of an awe-inspiring ancient Hawaiian temple made up of giant mounds of un-mortared lava rock – looking very much like a stone castle by the sea – complete with an interpretive center of educational exhibits and models, as well as a gift shop. The heiau (Hawaiian for “temple”) complex features several picturesque hiking trails and is featured in its own in-depth article on this site.

For campers and day trippers heading to the park, it’s wise to stock up on supplies in Kona town (roughly 35 miles south) or locally in the towns of Kawaihae or Waimea (12 miles east). There is no concessionaire at Spencer, and the dependable parking lot food trucks found at more urban beach parks on the island like Magic Sands and Kahaluu along Kona’s Alii Drive are similarly absent. So it’s important to pack in everything needed for your visit, including camping gear, sun protection and beach snacks (with the notable exception of drinking water, which the park provides in several areas).

Kiawe trees completely dominate the landscape in this region of Big Island, with their gnarled trunks and broad canopies of tiny leaves. One of the most noticeable characteristics of this curious variety of hardwood native to the islands is its ranks of large needle-like thorns. Kiawes have a habit of regularly dropping their thorny twigs, which at North Kona beaches tend to land in the golden sand and get partially buried, until an unfortunate barefoot beach-goer steps on them. Their thorns can get massive – up to an inch long or more, and are sharp enough to punch through the rubber soles of flip-flops. So, always wear decent shoes while walking across beaches like Spencer that are inhabited by kiawes, and be careful where you step.

They arrive to the market space’s unassuming gravel parking lot early – some even before dawn – and set to work stringing up tarp awnings and deploying seemingly endless ranks of plastic folding tables. Their booths are arranged in several long, compact columns running nearly the entire length of the parking lot, with walkways running between them that bring shoppers down the line from one table to the next.

There doesn’t seem to be any particular order to the layout of the market, either; a beeswax candle seller can be found next to an old woman hawking baked goods next to a flower-print dressmaker next to a colorful booth adorned with psychedelic-looking art. The only real segregation here seems to be near the main entrance where it’s mostly populated by hot food vendors, who cook up everything from burritos to fried rice and noodle dishes to crepes to potstickers to tamales all on propane grills. This block of apron-clad cooks rushing about to and fro and serving up paper plates heaped with delicacies sends the enticing aroma of roasting meat and frying oil billowing down the line of stalls.

In the height of the late-morning rush, this area of the market usually swells into a bustling beehive of activity, with lines of hungry patrons waiting for their plates to come off the grill. Everywhere there are groups of people rushing around with cardboard to-go containers, some of them stopping to munch on the typical mounds of noodles, crispy spring rolls, and platters of tacos, while others dig into more exotic fare like spicy papaya salad, falafels and hunks of grilled tropical fish. The mix of smells emanating from this sprawling line of grills can be truly overwhelming sometimes, combined with the hissing roar of frozen food being tossed into large woks full of hot oil.

Hungry market patrons who came to Makuu looking for some true island cuisine crowd around an old Hawaiian man offers up homemade poke (the legendary cubed, seasoned raw fish dish currently enjoying immense popularity on the mainland) with a light green and very thin wasabi sauce that is mind-blowingly spicy. Another local uncle, whom many have simply dubbed “dry fish guy”, works a stall nearby this improvised “food court” area and has been a dependable market fixture for years, selling a variety of different species of fish which he cures himself, like ahi, ono and mahi-mahi, in addition to other homemade seafood side dishes like squid salad and seaweed salad. He serves all of these dishes to-go from a series of coolers stacked in the bed of his pickup truck, which he backs right up to the edge of his stall.

For drinks, there are a handful of food trucks located in the parking lot serving up coffee, freshly squeezed juices and smoothies made with a wide assortment of Big Island’s legendary tropical fruits like pineapple, mango, guava, papaya and its many different types of citrus. On a typical Sunday, there is also at least one booth dedicated wholly to serving kombucha – the slightly-alcoholic probiotic fermented tea drink — both in to-go cups and in larger glass bottles and growlers. Some of the food court vendors even have drink dispensers adjacent to their grills, full of everything from lemonade and gingerade to iced tea and coconut-passionfruit juice.

All of these food and drink choices make Makuu Farmers Market a great spot to go for Sunday brunch. The food is relatively affordable, typically good quality and is made fresh right in front of customers’ eyes. It’s also a prime destination to shop for pretty much any type of Hawaii souvenir that the heart could desire, from carved wooden bowls to aromatic, colorful pressed flowers to jewelery to clothing and so much more. The skill and detailed craftsmanship employed by their makers is easy to notice in items like carved wooden figurines and the tightly woven mats, sun hats and baskets made from leaves of the native Hawaiian hala tree – a handicraft that’s been practiced in the islands since the first Polynesian settlers.

Strange Fruits, Goat Cheese, Wildflower Honey and Coconuts To-Go

Makuu Market (pronounced MAH-KOO-OO) is a fantastic one-stop-shop for the famed Big Island “fruit tour”. In essence, this is where Hawaii visitors coming from the mainland try the island’s stunning variety of strange, sometimes peculiar-tasting tropical fruit; types that simply can’t be found in the produce aisle of any conventional grocery store in any other state. Those taking the tour can usually be spotted pretty easily: they’re often the wide-eyed, semi-euphoric people standing in front of the fruit vendor tables, reeling from experiencing flavors that they didn’t know existed until that moment and trying to draw similarities; the jackfruit tastes like Juicy Fruit Gum, the soursop tastes like Starbursts candy, the longan berries taste like perfumey cantaloupe, and the durian tastes like creamy onions.

On the other six days of the week, Hilo Farmers Market is undoubtedly the best place on the island to take the fruit tour. It’s open every day and offers a low-priced, consistent array of neatly stacked pyramids ranging from easily recognizable avocados and mangoes to much more mysterious-looking specimens like rambutan, sapote, mangosteen and rollinia. But on a typical Sunday, Maku’u Market eclipses its big-city counterpart in terms of variety and value, offering an incredibly diverse selection of island-grown exotic fruit at prices that are consistently less than at the supermarkets in town. This is where visitors can find “white” pineapples, “ice cream” bananas, “purple” sugarcane and “strawberry” papayas – a stunning realization for people who’ve only ever known there to be one type.

In addition to these special varieties of produce, Makuu vendors also offer other specialty and artisanal food items, such as small-batch goat cheeses, handcrafted hot sauces, and jars of wildflower honey found in hues ranging from dark amber to pinkish blonde to nearly translucent. The vast majority of the market’s vendors make the items they sell themselves; this gives shoppers an invaluable opportunity to ask questions about their particular craft, to learn in-depth about how these items are made, and even to arrange for custom orders. All this makes a trip to the market a very intimate, educational and pressure-free experience, providing a great opportunity to meet genuine small-town East Hawaii locals, to support their burgeoning small businesses, and to get a taste of the “Real Hawaii”.

At the very far end of the market is its resident coconut vendor, Ano. He is an old hippie and permaculture enthusiast who harvests the nuts himself and gracefully swings his machete again a beat-up chopping block to open them. Crowds of onlookers can usually be found in a semicircle around him watching the process, somewhat mesmerized by a sight that is in a way the quintessence of tropical island living.

How To Get There

Maku’u Farmers Market is located right off of Highway 130 in the East Hawaii Island neighborhood of Hawaiian Paradise Park, locally known simply as “HPP”. The market space’s gravel parking lot and restroom building can be easily spotted from the highway, which on every other day but Sunday is a complete ghost town. It is only open from 7:00am until noon on Sundays, so most visitors make it their first stop of the day, and continue on to Pahoa-area beaches like Kehena or Pohoiki Beach, or to sightseeing destinations like Hawaii Volcanoes National Park or Hilo’s Bayfront.

Hawaiian Paradise Park is a sprawling residential neighborhood that stretches from the highway downhill all the way to the rocky coast, found between the small towns of Keaau and Pahoa. The two-lane gravel driveway leading to the market’s parking area is easy to spot, jutting off perpendicular to the highway and leading past a roadside propane-filling station marked with a large white-painted tank. For many years market-goers had to pay one dollar per vehicle at the check-in kiosk to enter, which just recently was raised to two dollars by the market’s administrators.

Somedays, however, the kiosk is unstaffed for whatever reason and vehicles freely cruise by without a second thought. The pull-in parking spaces beyond are very poorly marked, so the lot can sometimes seem like a free for all. After parking, walk a short distance towards the restroom building, which inhabits one corner of the market area and marks its main entrance. Keep in mind that the parking lot and market complex itself are paved with gravel, so wear decent shoes and watch your footing. Makuu is also well-known for its torrential rainstorms, often interrupting otherwise clear and calm mornings with little notice, so if planning a visit to the market during rainy season, it’s a good idea to bring a waterproof jacket.

Johnson has poured his heart and soul into the place, designing, building and maintaining all the attractions himself, with some extra help at times from of his wife Yamna. He’s a hobbyist, collector and tinkerer whose interests run the gamut from electrical engineering to sustainable agriculture to scientific research, and who has earned a sort of celebrity status around town as “Hobby Garden Guy.” He has built remote-controlled boats, working model trains large enough to carry child passengers, dinosaurs, volcanoes, scale-model cities and bewilderingly complex, carefully arranged collections of miniatures.

All of these creations and much more are spread out across Hobby Garden; basketball and mini-golf, enclosures for tortoises, rabbits and songbirds, a row of homemade seaworthy boats, a fishpond teeming with glinting rainbow-colored fish sought after by young kids wielding poles and casting barbless hooks, and even a rideable model train that loops through it all. This last attraction is arguably the Garden’s most famous – the ones that manages to make it into all the photos of smiling patrons. Like everything else, Johnson built the train himself using a repurposed weed-whacker engine for its power source. He’s also its conductor, and drives the scaled-down locomotive along a narrow, circular track built atop countless wooden, hand-laid railroad ties. 

Beside the train tracks is a 150,00 gallon fish pond teeming with schools of swirling fish, ranging in species from koi to tilapia to midas to the the frightening-looking dark grey fish from South America’s Amazon Rainforest known as the “red-bellied pacu”. The park offers complimentary fishing poles to attendees, who gather at the guardrail made of painted metal lattice built at hip-height around the pond and cast barbless hooks out into the murky water, hoping to get a bite. There’s a strict catch-and-release policy at the park, which Johnson usually administers himself, although his family does at times use the tilapias for food. 

Surrounding the pond is a maze of indoor and outdoor exhibits; rooms with plexiglass showcases stacked floor to ceiling, containing every imaginable type of model machine from cars, trucks and tanks to sailboats, steamships, airplanes, rocket ships and many more. An entire section of the park is dedicated to painstakingly arranged cultural dioramas, mostly depicting scenes of everyday life from around the world and throughout history. There’s a Great Wall of China scene punctuated with piles of Chinese artifacts adjacent to a miniature Eiffel Tower and a typical French city street. There are models of the White House, Statue of Liberty, Golden Gate Bridge – even an outer space moonscape complete with rovers, satellites and astronauts.

Farther down the avenue of miniatures is a Polynesian-themed exhibit, which includes a fog-machine volcano of textured, lava-like concrete. Part of creating this special effect involved squeezing wet cement out of an icing bag to form the smooth, ropey texture that is the hallmark of hot, viscous lava known as “pahoehoe” in Hawaiian. Johnson got this idea from his original occupation back in his home country of Fiji: pastry chef. Beside the volcano is a scene of grass huts, babbling streams and marshy patches of the ubiquitous Polynesian staple crop called taro. 

This particular exhibit is a replica of the ancient Hawaiian land division known as the ahupua’a (AH-HOO-POO-AH-AH), which split the island into slices like a pizza and organized the trading of upland farm crops with fresh fish and other edible sea life caught by lowland coastal villages. The details of this display in particular are pretty astounding: Johnson was keen to include a row of handsomely crafted model outrigger sailing canoes, and even a pig cooking in the traditional Hawaiian earthen oven known as an “imu” (the source of smoky flavor in the iconic Hawaiian dish called kailua pork). 

As the park’s optional tour guide, Johnson is a valuable wellspring of knowledge about how ancient Pacific Island societies functioned, and one of his main goals in running Hobby Garden is making this type of engaging cultural education available for schoolchildren. As such, it’s common to see school buses in the parking lots and gaggles of excited students running from station to station as they try to cram it all into one afternoon.

Hobby Garden’s Food Forest, Fruit Tree Nursery, and The Seaplane That Started It All

Beyond the machine museum and line of tabletop dioramas is a sprawling forest of tropical fruit trees; some conventional fare like citrus, papaya, banana and avocado, but also some truly exotic types like soursop, Brazilian Cherry and sapote. Whatever surplus fruit the trees produce becomes compost to feed the fish, usually lobbed out into the pond periodically throughout the day to a raucous whirlpool of excitement. From time to time, Johnson and his wife work together to pump out some of the sediment-rich pond water and spray it on the surrounding plants as fertilizer. This, Johnson says, is true “sustainable farming” – another facet of the park’s educational endeavors. 

In one corner of Hobby Garden’s grounds is a sizable fruit tree nursery, stocked with saplings of many of the trees growing just a stone’s throw away in the food forest. The nursery serves much of the same purpose as the fishpond: primarily to provide food for their own kitchen, with the option to sell an unneeded portion for extra income. In between groups of park attendees, Johnson can be seen milling around the property, tending to the young trees, fixing broken railroad ties and throwing handfuls of cat food into the ponds to feed the fish. He rarely ever seems to sit still, imbued with boundless energy and a keen eye for making upgrades. 

Of the thousands of different miniatures crammed into the park, the most important one is found in the aptly named “Wow Room”, called this after the audible expressions of wide-eyed visiting schoolchildren who catch their first sight of the house full of Hot Wheels treasure chests. Here, hanging overhead and serving as the rooms imposing centerpiece, is an handsomely painted scale-model of the World War II-era British seaplane known as the Sunderland Flying Boat, which in its heyday boasted a more than 100-foot wingspan and broad belly. It’s a handmade mock-up of fiberglass and wood covered in a skin of thin aluminum sheeting and detailed to look like the real thing – something that has held a special place in Johnson’s heart since he was a six-year-old boy growing up in Fiji.

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All those years ago, these big planes would fly over his grandfather’s house on the main island of Viti Levu every other day, departing and landing at a nearby navy base while on reconnaissance and search-and-rescue missions across vast, isolated swaths of the Pacific Ocean. He still remembers the sound of its four roaring engines – it was an experience that ignited in his young mind a passion for learning the intricacies of how machines work. It drove him to become a self-taught engineer who, now in his late-60s, happily surrounds himself with anything with a motor, whether life-size or miniature.

How To Get There

Hobby Garden, also known as “Mini-Wonderland”, is located along 12^th Avenue in the Hawaiian Paradise Park neighborhood of East Hawaii Island between Paradise Drive and Kaloli Drive. Locally known simply as “HPP”, the neighborhood can be found a few miles south of the old sugarcane town of Keaau along Highway 130, on the way to the rainswept bohemian town of Pahoa.

The Garden’s street address is 15-1695 12^th Avenue, and it is open from 9:00am to 3:00pm daily. Hours and admission fees are subject to change, and it’s always a good idea to get in touch with Johnson via phone before planning a visit to get the most up-to-date information. Most of the attractions are geared toward children, making it an ideal stop for parents visiting Big Island with their families, although solo adults curious about tropical agriculture and model-building still seem to have a good time here.

Other nearby attractions include the Maku’u Sunday Farmers’ Market and the several-mile-long roundtrip hike out to Shipman Beach, both of which are featured in their own full-length articles on this site. The market grounds and the trailhead for the beach hike are both found in HPP, as are a wide variety of short-term vacation rentals for those planning to stay a few days in the island’s rural, rugged and supremely beautiful Puna District.

What is today a long stretch of raw, isolated oceanfront land – a gently-sloping shoreline of smooth lava rocks mixed with finely pulverized black sand – was once a picturesque bay fringed with coconut palms and frequented by swimmers, surfers, boaters and boogie boarders of every stripe. Back then the place was known as “Pohoiki Bay” (POE-HOE-EE-KEY), and boasted the only viable surf breaks along Puna District’s entire  Kalapana Coast – an otherwise rocky and unforgiving swath of the island’s windward side with very few safe swimming spots.

Old Pohoiki featured a formidable concrete boat ramp that sloped down to the water’s edge, delivering swimmers, surfers and boaters into a miniature manmade inlet of protected ocean, made possible by the giant pier of stacked lava boulders and cement blocks that look like reused WW2 tank traps. This breakwater used to jut out into the bay, protecting the boat ramp and creating a shallow, placid swimming area that was immensely popular with kids. Lava tour boats would launch and haul out from here, and it was a truly spectacular sight to see a bustling throng of swimmers part down the middle to let the boats go through, all beside the many warning signs posted on the pier saying “No Swimming”.

These concrete structures are still there at Pohoiki, but are thoroughly surrounded by (and in places covered in) giant drifts of black sand and crushed lava stones created during the 2018 Lower Puna Eruption. The arrival of all this new material extended the coastline out to sea several hundred feet, and created expansive, hilly tracts of jet black gravel that seem highly unstable in some places. Now the boat ramp leads to nowhere; walls of lava rock enclose it in a stagnant, sometimes sickly green looking lagoon. This uninviting green hue contrasts sharply with the crystal-blue waves breaking across the beach, which mellow out enough on calm days for swimmers to ply the waters close to shore.

Favorable conditions at Pohoiki are rare, though, and getting in the water here can be extremely hazardous, and a non-starter for those who aren’t strong swimmers. This is obviated by the well-outfitted lifeguard crew making use of four-wheelers, life rings and multiple observation posts. Since the beach is so new, locals haven’t had time to familiarize themselves with safer areas, and much of its underwater structure is constantly shifting and rearranging with the swelling surf and stormwater runoff.

Many visitors to the beach decide to stay out of the water, opting instead to explore the many nooks and crannies along the coast and get a first-hand look at how dramatically lava flows can change a place. Some are shocked to see just how close Pohoiki came in 2018 to complete destruction; the wall of jagged lava rock making up the beach’s new northern boundary nearly encircles the parking lot. 

Considering that the flow had advanced south along the coast many miles at this point, destroying many other well-loved swimming spots like Kapoho Tidepools and Ahalanui Beach Park, it is nothing short of a miracle that somehow the wall of destruction stopped just a stone’s throw from the beach’s only access road. Had the fury of the eruption kept up for just a few more days, and had a few more million gallons of lava come crashing down the hill from Leilani, and it’s highly likely that Pohoiki today would be but a cherished memory.

Creating Black Sand With Fire And Water

The scale of the 2018 eruption was mindbogglingly, starting with the cropping up of two-dozen volcanic fissures in the neighborhood of Leilani Estates, which went on to feed a miles-long lava river that steamrolled downhill to the coast and completely destroyed the quiet, affluent seaside village of Kapoho. 

It destroyed hundreds of homes, consumed miles of public roads, severed electricity and water lines and forced thousands of Lower Puna residents to evacuate, at an estimated cost of recovery of 800 million dollars. The flow also created nearly 900 acres of new land along Big Island’s eastern coastline, in a swath of barren lavafield that stretches from Kumukahi Lighthouse in the north to the very edge of Pohoiki Beach in the south. 

At its height, the main fissure in Leilani feeding the river was pumping out tens of thousands of gallons of lava per second, which made its long, looping journey down to the ocean. Once the molten rock entered the cool seawater, it exploded; this is thanks to a strange phenomenon where lava – measuring in the thousands of degrees Fahrenheit – rapidly cools and fractures in the water, creating trillions of tiny particles that wash back to shore as beach sand. This phenomenon is what filled in Pohoiki Bay and created the isolated, rocky beach that still manages to draw a crowd. 

How To Get There

Back in the day, the trip to Pohoiki Bay was an easy one – it could be accessed from three directions, and via a nearly straight shot from the town of Pahoa. Getting to Pohoiki Beach now is a bit more complicated, though, thanks to the 2018 Lower Puna Eruption destroying large sections of highway that have yet to be rebuilt. 

Both the Highway 137 north and Pohoiki Road routes are no longer viable, leaving the only access to the beach via Highway 137 south, otherwise known as “Red Road”. This way takes visitors through the tiny fishing village of Opihikao and past its prominent church, which is an easy-to-spot landmark. Just a few miles past the village is a hand-carved wooden sign on the right side of the road for MacKenzie State Park – a sprawling forest of ironwood trees and tall, scraggly sea cliffs great for hiking and wave-watching.

For awhile the park was the end of the road, as several pioneering lobes of lava from the eruption had crossed Highway 137 north of there and completely cut off Pohoiki. Several months after the volcano became dormant again, County of Hawaii bulldozers were hard at work clearing those overrun sections and building a series of steep temporary gravel roads in order to regain access. Crossing these rugged, rocky patches between stretches of asphalt is still to this day the only way to reach Pohoiki Beach.

There are two ways to get to the village of Opihikao from the main lower Puna District town of Pahoa. Both begin on Highway 130 following signs for the village of Kalapana. Roughly three miles outside of Pahoa is a left-hand turn for Kamaili Road – a steep and winding route that meanders down the hill, snaking past livestock pasture, homestead farms and towering green jungle. This is the shorter of the two routes, but is incredibly steep in some spots and demands alert and cautious driving, especially in rainy conditions and low visibility.

The longer route involves staying straight at the turn for Kamaili Road and continuing along Highway

Reed’s Bay Beach Park is a hidden gem along Hilo’s looping scenic oceanfront byway known as Banyan Drive – named after the rows of gigantic Banyan trees lining the road – and features a short, crescent-shaped white sand beach studded with coral rubble that gently slopes down into the vividly clear waters of the shallow Reed’s Bay. 

It’s a small inlet on the east side of the Waiakea Peninsula – a picturesque, low-lying oceanfront neighborhood featuring several prominent Hilo restaurants, hotels and attractions, which separates the city’s bayfront area to the west from its long string of iconic swimming spots located farther east along the coast, like Keaukaha Beach Park, Carlsmith Beach Park, Onekahakaha Beach Park and Richardson Ocean Park. 

Reed’s Bay is a shallow, peaceful swimming area on most days, exceedingly popular with families bringing their young children, who can be seen frolicking about happily when the onshore breeze makes ripples in the bay and sends to shore miniature, lapping waves in quick succession. Its calm waters are made possible by the two-mile-long Hilo Breakwater, a giant arcing wall of stacked lava boulders that juts out into the bay. This seawall tempers the force of the powerful rolling waves coming in off the open ocean, which crash spectacularly against the boulders on windy days – a show of raw natural force that has become somewhat of a sightseeing attraction in its own right. 

The beach extends out to a peninsula lined with still more Banyan trees – these with exposed roots as the slow erosion caused by the bay’s ebbing waters clears away the soft soil surrounding them bit by bit. At the base of the trees is a short section of handsomely mortared lava rock wall, seemingly being overrun by the masses of twisted, writhing roots that reach into every crevice. 

Several picnic areas can be found near this peninsula adjacent to a large grassy field, which makes up the far boundary of the park; a place where on sunny Hilo afternoons sunbathers, cyclists, dog walkers, snorkelers and swimmers are found laid out on beach towels and picnic blankets. The park’s scattering of barbecue pits are often fired up, especially on weekend afternoons of clear skies, sending the enticing aroma of wood smoke and cooking meats wafting across the beachfront. From these picnic spots along the peninsula, visitors can get a clear view of the groupings of sailboats moored up in the bay, and of the newly arriving and departing vessels who come close enough to the spit of land on their way in and out for their captains to give a friendly wave to onlookers.

The water in the bay is warm and soothing, owing to its shallow bottom lined with reflective white coral fragments. Kayakers and stand-up paddle boarders take advantage of this swatch of protected ocean, cruising around the inland waters and exploring the many rocky coves and mini-beaches. These types of watercraft and many more can be rented for sometimes shockingly reasonable daily rates at the string of rental shops found in Hilo, and first-timers are wise to pick a calm and shallow spot like Reed’s Bay to get their introduction to the sport.

The beach park is a great place for snorkeling, too, with astonishingly clear water, resident schools of colorful tropical fish and intricate, fragile-looking structures of coral in mind-bogglingly complex configurations found just below the surface. Surfers and boogie boarders usually steer clear of the park because the waves breaking on the beach rarely grow to be more than a gentle lapping, and there is no viable offshore reef break either at the mouth of the bay. These boarders – and other ocean-goers looking for more of a thrill and to ride some formidable waves – usually head for spots like Honoli’i Beach Park, a few miles north of town up the Hamakua Coast (featured in its own article).

“Ice Pond”, “Nene”, And Who Was William Reed?

At the coral-lined mouth of the bay, just offshore of Reed’s Bay Beach Park, is a natural pond of cold, fresh spring water that bubbles up from the ocean floor and mixes with saltwater in a curious inversion. This swimming hole is known as “Ice Pond” among locals, and is a great place to cool off during one of Hilo’s oppressively hot and muggy summer days. Swimmers who make the journey to Ice Pond will find that it imparts a strange sensation: the warm ocean water on top and cold spring water below, making one half of the body chilly while the other half feels exceedingly hot.

The ocean floor of Reed’s Bay is made up of white sand and chunks of coral rubble. This coral material was the byproduct of the dredging of Hilo Harbor in the early 20^th Century in order to make way for a deepwater port. The rubble was deposited in and along the bay, and has been slowly mixing with the native black volcanic sand ever since to form patches of grey.

In addition to the myriad different kinds of sea life to be spotted out in the bay, the beach park even features some terrestrial wildlife. Reed’s Bay is famous for being home to several flocks of resident “Nene”, otherwise known as the Hawaiian Goose. This is a medium-sized black and brown goose with clear striping patterns that’s endemic to the Hawaiian Islands, and was designated to be the state bird in 1957. It’s also highly endangered, and was hunted to near-extinction during Hawaii’s colonial era before coordinated and well-funded conservation work brought them back from the brink. Today, the nene’s global population numbers only a few thousand, found exclusively on Hawaii’s five main islands (Oahu, Molokai, Maui, Kauai and Big Island).

The birds can be spotted milling around the park grounds on days when few people are out swimming and paddling in the bay. Some neighborhood wildlife lover even leaves out plastic trays of rice for the birds, who slowly make their way down the coast from tray to tray gobbling up the grains. Although the nene can seem friendly and cuddle-able, it’s important to give them their space and not harass them, considering how fragile their populations are. 

Reed’s Bay Beach Park is named after William H. Reed. He was a prominent businessman born in Belfast, Ireland, who moved to the Big Island in the early 1840’s and lived here up until his death in 1880. He set up a contracting business on the island specializing in the construction of wharfs, landings, bridges and roads. Met with great success, he eventually branched out into ranching, trading and retailing. He had no children when he died, and much of his wealth eventually came to his stepson William Herbert Shipman, who grew up to be another immensely powerful white Hawaiian businessman for which many places on the island are named, including Shipman Estate, Shipman Beach (featured in its own article) and Shipman Business Park.

How To Get There

Reed’s Bay Beach Park can be easily accessed via Banyan Drive just north of the intersection of Highway 11, otherwise known as Hawaii Belt Road, and Kamehameha Avenue in downtown Hilo. Continue straight at the stoplights, and in less than half a mile the hand-carved wooden sign and parking lot for the park will come into view on the right.

The park features a picnic area, stands of outdoor public showers, and a restroom facility offering modern amenities. It is open seven days a week from 7:00am until sunset. Since most of the swimming areas in the bay are very well-protected, no lifeguard is on duty here – a fact that should be kept in mind by families with small children and those just learning to swim. The large lawn adjacent to the Banyan tree peninsula fills up pretty consistently on sunny weekends, and is usually dotted by white pop-up tents and folding camp chairs being used by families having cookouts.

Just a short walk down the tree-lined Banyan Drive from the park, visitors can find some of the most luxurious accommodation options that Hilo has to offer. Also inhabiting Waiakea Peninsula are the three-star hotels Hilo Hawaiian and Grand Naniloa Hotel Hilo, as well as the two-star Hilo Reed’s Bay Hotel. Park-goers looking for a great lunch or dinner spot after a day of swimming and paddling are in luck, too, considering that Reed’s Bay is just a short walk from one of the city’s premiere foodie neighborhoods. Verna’s Drive-In, Ponds Hilo, Coconut Grill, and Le Yellow Sub Vietnamese Restaurant are all located adjacent to the bay, and cook up everything from mouth-watering ethnic food to Hawaiian comfort dishes to continental cuisine.

Keaukaha is the first stop on the curving coastal road which goes on to find other iconic Hilo swimming spots like Carlsmith Beach Park, Richardson Ocean Park and the kid-friendly Onekahakaha Beach Park and its shallow, boulder-lined wading pool. With so many great swimming options along the peninsula, the real significance of this first stop lies in its proximity to the two-mile long Hilo Breakwater. This is a crescent-shaped arc of massive stacked lava boulders stretching out into the bay and protecting its shoreline neighborhoods from the immense ocean power of Hawaii Island’s windward side.

These breeze-blown rolling waves make their way in from the open ocean and head into the bay, where they crash against the seawall in spectacular explosions of violent white foam and raining sea spray. Larger rollers strike with such intensity against the breakwater that a muffled slap can be heard from shore, with a slight sound delay due to the distance. It is a somewhat mesmerizing and quintessentially Big Island sight, great for any visitor looking for a dramatic example of the Pacific Ocean’s storied power.

And arguably the best place to see this explosive show is from the lava gravel shores of Keaukaha Beach Park, located roughly a quarter-mile from the shoreside terminus of the breakwater. Here, tidepool-goers experience the strange phenomenon of frolicking about in placid, shallow pools thoroughly protected from the onslaught of waves seemingly just a stone’s throw away from the churning sea that flings its towering white-capped walls of water against the unwavering rock pile. The park’s secluded and placid nature is thanks to the shape of Puhi Bay, which deflects much of the wave energy past its shores and sends it further west into Hilo Bay.

Those visiting the park and hoping to get as close as they can to its spectacle will find that Keaukaha’s western edge provides the best semi-up-close views of the waves. There are few swimming spots in this area of the park – the coastline here is mostly jagged outcrops of lava boulders leading along a similarly rocky coastline towards the breakwater. A large, dense forest of ironwood trees inhabits this edge of the park, with the faint impression of a seldom-used footpath running along its periphery. Songbirds inhabit the trees, and sing sweet melodies on breezy, sunny days that mix together with the music of rustling needles and the far-off thunder of the crashing surf.

From this spot, the neighborhoods of small, colorful houses spread across the hills above Hilo are clearly visible, and beyond that the flanks of Mauna Kea – Big Island’s most geologically and culturally significant mountain – rise up above the treeline. The great mountain’s summit is shrouded in a halo of thick rain-bearing clouds on most days, but this vantage point still affords a great classic Hawaiian nature photo op: smashing royal blue waves, wall of giant lava rocks, jungly hills dotted with modest homes, and the mountain slopes of an ancient, towering and almost-mythical volcano. 

Shady Banyan Groves, Turtles and Breadfruits

Visitors making their way from the park’s western wave-watching area toward the coves of swimming spots nearer to its center will find several massive Banyan trees and an assembly of exceptionally tall coconut palms towering over ideal grassy sunbathing and picnic areas. The “beach” part of the park’s name can be a bit misleading since much of its coastline is completely devoid of beach to speak of. But here in the middle, beneath the palm fronds and the intricately woven trunks and broad canopies of Banyans, is a small stretch of somewhat rocky beach strewn with a mixture of black and white sand, smooth lava stones and fragments of coral. This sliver of sand is well-protected from the churning ocean beyond it, making it a popular place for picnicking families with young children, since even at high tide the water levels in the surrounding pools rarely gets to be waist-deep.

Swimming and wading here will bring park-goers up close and personal with Big Island’s myriad collection of tidepool sea life, including crabs, anemones, starfish, eels, seahorses, urchins and mollusks. The iconic Hawaiian Green Sea Turtle is even known to haul their wide bodies up onto the rocky outcrops surrounding the park to sun themselves after a strenuous morning of perusing the coastline’s many nooks and crannies looking for seaweed morsels. Although these are fascinating creatures, visitors who are lucky enough to share a wading pool with them must keep in mind the fact that this turtle is critically endangered, and that state and federal laws prohibit approaching or bothering them. Sometimes their shells can mimic the looks of the surrounding rocks, so always keep an eye out and step mindfully while down at the coast hopping from rock to rock.

Up from the park’s quaint stretch of beach, the unmistakable smell of overripe fruit greets passersby. A large, sprawling mature breadfruit tree can be spotted beside one of the roadside parking lots, with its broad, serrated leaves and dangling, sap-covered yellow orbs giving off the fruity, if not slightly sickly scent. Beneath the tree is a neat pile of fallen fruit with the requisite cloud of hovering fruit flies, while many of the more ripe specimens still hanging from branches look like they could drop at any minute. This is one of the classic Hawaiian “canoe plants” – referring to the collection of flora brought by the first Polynesian settlers to the newfound island chain to serve as the staple crops with which they would build their new civilization.

Heading farther along the peninsula down Kalanianaole Street, visitors will come upon a group of wide-open, rolling grassy fields that make up the eastern edge of the park. These are some of the most well-maintained sports fields in all of Hilo town, making it a popular place for everything from pickup soccer games to frisbee golf to croquet. These handsome fields make the park a sort of one-stop-shop for athletes and sporty visitors, who can swim, snorkel, sunbathe and play ball all in the same place. Scattered between the fields are groups of picnic tables, and several restroom facilities outfitted with modern amenities are close-by. Less than a mile further along the peninsula away from downtown Hilo is the next beach park in the line: Onekahakaha Beach Park, with its beloved kids wading pools and the picturesque Chalk’s Beach, which is featured in its own article. 

How To Get There

To see the crashing waves and placid pools at Keaukaha Beach Park, start from the intersection of Highway 11, otherwise known as Hawaii Belt Road, and Kamehameha Avenue along Hilo’s bayfront, and take the right-hand turn onto Kalanianaole Street (KAH-LAW-NEE-AH-NAH-OH-LAY). Continue for roughly two miles, past the Port Of Hilo, Kuhio Kalanianaole Park, Big Island Motors and Keaukaha General Store, until signs come into view for the park on the left. There are several pull-in parking lots beside the main road providing access to the various different areas of the park, and the lots seem nearly deserted most of the time.

Keauhaka is open daily from 6:00am to 9:00pm. Signs posted around the park clearly state that pets, alcoholic drinks and any sort of vending is prohibited. The rugged footpaths leading along the rocky coastline are paved with uneven stones in many places, along with the occasional jutting tree root and half-buried lava cinder. So, visitors should wear proper foot protection (not flip-flops) if they plan on exploring farther afield or taking the walk out to the ironwood grove to get a better look at the waves crashing against the breakwater.

There are few amenities available once out on the peninsula, so be sure to stock up on beach snacks, reef-safe sunscreen and drinking water in Hilo. The supermarkets and chain stores of Prince Kuhio Plaza shopping mall are located just one mile south on Highway 11 from its intersection with Kalanianaole Street. There is also some exceptional dining options in the neighborhood of Keaukaha Beach Park, including well-renown local eateries like Verna’s Drive-In, Coconut Grill, Ponds Hilo, Millie’s Deli and Snack Shop, and Le Yellow Sub Vietnamese restaurant. One of Hilo’s most frequent recipients of “Best-Of” awards, Sombat’s Fresh Thai Cuisine, is located in this same part of town, and is a great place to stop for dinner after a long day of swimming, tidepool wading and wave-watching. 

Lava Highway 132, Hawaii’s newest lava field is found on Big Island’s eastern flank, in its rural and agricultural Puna District, and is traversed by a gently curving highway that was opened just a few years ago: Lava Highway 132.

This is a pristine broad-shouldered, two-lane road built on top of the vast sea of black rock left in the wake of the 2018 Lower Puna Eruption. It snakes down downhill through patches of spared agricultural land and long stretches of cracked, brittle-looking hills of hardened lava, the road itself a patchwork of old and new segments with their joints clearly noticeable by the different color and texture of the asphalt. Houses that were somehow miraculously untouched by the flow sit by the roadside; what was once a home on a country block is now a solitary structure lying in an island of untouched land with an endless rocky moonscape stretching out to the horizon in all directions.

The views from along the highway are a truly shocking, tragic and astonishing collection of sights to behold; the rusted metal skeleton of a barn sticking halfway out of a lava drift, mindbogglingly huge piles of dead, dried-out trees slowly being eaten away by the elements, the long-since-hardened bank of what was once a ferocious, rushing river of molten rock measuring in the thousands of degrees Fahrenheit now eerily still and quiet. This river was how the billions of gallons of lava spewing from the monstrous Fissure 8, now known by the Hawaiian name Ahuailaau (AH-HOO-EYE-LAW-OW), in the inland neighborhood of Leilani Estates managed to make its way downhill and almost completely destroy the small coastal town of Kapoho and much of its adjacent farmland.

Visitors making their way down Highway 132 today will drive through cross-sections of this riverbed, with its massive walls of cracked, jet-black rock that appear nearly vertical. Several pull-offs along the road allow for closer observations of the strange, curious and sometimes eerie-looking rock formations. All the different textures of lava are on display here: flat sections of hard, smooth, ropey lava known in Hawaiian as “pahoehoe” (PAH-HOY-HOY), bordered by drifts of porous, brittle and exceptionally sharp rock called “a’a” (AH-AH). The texture of the riverbed itself is peculiar: shards of crumpled, rippled rock that catch the sunlight and seem to glitter within the morass, appearing almost like a valley of black broken glass.

Beyond the channel’s far bank is the bright green canopy of a forest of trees growing at the edge of the flow field, which has regrown its foliage after a thorough dose of sulfuric gasses stemming from the eruption left its branches bare. Above the greenery, a baby blue sky full of puffy, cotton-candy clouds completes the tropical volcanic island color scheme: black rock, green jungle, blue sky. 

Stunning views featuring all these colors, along with the wide belt of turquoise ocean on the horizon, can be found at many of the pull-offs along the Lava Highway, particularly near its western terminus less than a mile from Lava Tree State Park and Puna Geothermal Venture. From this vantage point, the road winds gently downhill through vast stretches of new, largely flat lavafield, which affords onlookers an unencumbered view for several miles. 

It can be tempting to trudge up the bank of mounded boulders beside the road at this point to get an even better view, but be extremely careful: much of the 2018 flow field beyond the rebuilt highway roadbed is still very unstable, and countless undersurface voids such as lava tubes and sinkholes have been encountered by geologists studying the area. These voids can be large enough to swallow a car, and can still be dangerously hot even half a decade since all surface lava has hardened. 

During East Hawaii’s rainy season, huge white billowing clouds of steam can still be spotted drifting over the lower stretches of Highway 132, indicating that even years later there’s still enough residual heat deep underground to boil rainwater. To this day, during particularly heavy rainstorms, County of Hawaii roadworkers sometimes have to close the highway completely due to low visibility from the billowing clouds drifting across the lanes.

The Meaning Of “Kipuka” 

In Hawaiian, the word “kipuka” (KEE-POO-KAH) refers to an island of untouched land surrounded by lavafield on every side. The 2018 Lower Puna Eruption created countless kipuka as pioneering lobes of lava coming from the two-dozen fissures cropping up in Leilani Estates criss-crossed each other, destroying miles of roads and creating an intricate checkerboard landscape of intact farmland and still-standing structures surrounded by lava drifts. The homes within these islands were inaccessible – some of them still isolated even several years after the eruption – due to road loss.

The largest of these kipuka to form was known as the “Highway 132 Kipuka,” which was comprised of approximately 56 properties and 70 residential structures that were spared from destruction. Much of this was agricultural land, with expansive fields of papayas stretching away from the highway in both directions and small groupings of homestead lots, most of which utilized off-grid solar electric and rain catchment water systems. Almost all of the farmland within the kipuka became overgrown during the year-and-a-half when road access was impossible to the cutoff but still-intact section of highway. 

The County of Hawaii government recognized the need to reopen the road and reestablish access to the dozens of surviving properties early on, making it a top priority during planning sessions of eruption recovery work. In early June, 2019, the first bulldozers began the task of clearing more than three miles of covered roadway on either side of the Highway 132 Kipuka. This was made up of two nearly identical-length sections: one from just beyond Lava Tree State Park to the kipuka’s western edge, and the other from its eastern edge down to the former town of Kapoho and the area once called “Four Corners”. 

Contractors building the road sections worked quickly, navigating hundred-foot-thick lava hills, lava tubes and other dangerous voids that threatened to gobble up machines and workers, and even pockets of astoundingly high heat. Some of the crews had to pause construction for a time after coming upon 800-degree rocks that would warp bucket blades and melt the machines’ hydraulic hoses. The road was finally opened in late-November 2019 to the relief of dozens of Puna District residents, who slowly trickled back to their former homes and began the often daunting task of reestablishing their lives. 

These East Hawaii residents are accustomed to living with a volcano in their backyard, and have time and again shown a palpable resilience, stubbornness and plain grit in the face of so much disaster. Visitors to the area notice this shared quality among the locals almost immediately, and it’s easy to spot while driving along the new highway; the clusters of young coconut palms, ti plants and ornamental shrubs planted by undaunted hands along the stretches of otherwise barren, monochrome landscape. 

How To Get There

Lower Puna District’s Lava Highway 132 can be accessed via the small hippie town of Pahoa roughly 10 miles south of Hilo, Big Island’s largest city and home to one of its two main airports, Hilo International Airport (ITO). From the town of Pahoa, continue straight through the traffic light at the far edge of town and follow along the windy, jungle-lined road past the neighborhood of Nanawale Estates, and past the painted wooden sign on the left for Lava Tree State Park and its collection of curious, naturally formed lava monuments. 

Less than a quarter-mile past the entrance to the park, the sides of the highway abruptly go from towering dark green jungle to swaths of cracked black rock. This is the beginning of the Lava Highway, which swoops downhill for several more miles before coming to a stop sign at the very bottom of the hill. The most interesting lava formations are arguably along the highway’s upper portion, but its lower lengths are where steam clouds are most prolific after rainstorms, and where heat can still be felt emanating from holes in the rock. 

At the far end of the highway, just beyond the stop sign, is a makeshift parking lot with some excellent views of the rocky, deserted coastline and far-off Kumukahi Lighthouse, which has been long-defunct. From this parking area, either continue back up the hill toward Lava Tree Park or take the left turn onto Government Beach Road – a route leading to the naturally formed tidal pools known as Mermaid Ponds. This jungly, sometimes narrow road goes on for roughly six miles until intersecting the neighborhood of Hawaiian Beaches, which is only a few miles down the main arterial Kahakai Boulevard from Pahoa, creating a full loop.