I spent my second day in Kona hiking at Kailua Beach. Starting out on foot from our hotel, I made my way through the Old Kona Airport State Recreation Area, finally arriving at Kailua Beach. I had the area to myself for the vast majority of my hike, and spent some extensive time climbing over the old lava flows and poking around the tidal pools.
My hike out to Kailua was a relatively easy trek via local roads from my hotel, to a combination of grassy trails, white sand, and black lava rock. While there’s virtually no elevation gain on this route, some of the lava flows can be both slippery and sharp, so good hiking shoes are still advised – especially once you get through the recreation area and onto the rocks.
There are a fair amount of tidal pools protected by the lava flows and rock deposits on the shore line. I spent some time cooling off in a few and attempted some more underwater photography. I was beginning to lose hope of snapping photos of anything worth while until I hit the last pool. Check out this eel! Probably one of my better underwater subjects I found on this trip.
On my way back to the hotel, I headed up the hill towards the north west part of town. Not only did this add some elevation challenge to my hike back, but also let me sample two of the local breweries on my way. My first stop was at Ola Brew Company, which I believe had just recently opened up for business. Afterwards I followed up with the well-known Kona Brewery for a second flight before finally returning to the hotel. Not a bad way to end this particular vacation excursion!
You can read more about my trip to Kona, Hawaii, in my “Looking Back” blog series entry here.