Adventures...in Pahoa

Now that Steve and I have talked about going out and adventuring as much as we can, I can't help but get excited when I have a day off from school. This last Tuesday was Veteran's Day (Thank you to those of you who have served or are serving), and I had the day off. Tuesday for Steve became "Take your girlfriend to work day". And by that I mean, ride along in the van while he goes into offices and works. Because we were on the other side of the island, I thought, Light Bulb! Perfect time to go and check out Pahoa. Due to the lava flow in the Puna area, I wanted to make sure that I visited the area before things started getting crazy. So our journey to Pahoa began around noon!

Our first stop on our adventure was Kaleo's in Puna. Puna is a cute little town. Luckily, in this cute little town is Kaleo's. I feel like no matter what I say, it won't do it justice, the food was great. We had Kalua Pork wontons, I had a Mahi BLT and we had Lilikoi cheesecake for dessert! AMAZING! 

After lunch, we decided to walk through town. Again, it is very small and walking through did not take much time. Due to the lava flow, some of the streets were shut down. 

From there, we started towards our destination of the adventures: the Hot Ponds!!! When we decided this was what we were doing, I couldn't stop thinking about it. I had never been to a hot pond before and the idea of it was exciting! 

Before we went to the hot ponds we stopped at a gorgeous beach! They call it Dead Trees because of all the dead trees on the beach. The view down here seems amazing compared to Kona, it seems like the ocean is so much bigger! 

So we made our way to Ahalanui Park, through the canopy of trees. What makes the pond hot? It's warmed by the magma of our island! 

View of the ocean from inside the hot pond. 

After our time in the hot ponds, we made our way down red road. Miles down the road we reached a destination and made our way onto a beach that had been destroyed from a lava flow decades ago. The contrast between red dirt and lava rock was so pretty. 

We hiked through the red dirt and lava field and made our way to a black sand beach. I love our beaches in Kona, but this one was breathtaking. 

Our day trip to the other side was a lot of fun. The drive to and from, not so much but it was worth it. It was crazy to think that we were in the same area the lava is affecting our island. Until next time...(hopefully this weekend). 

Stevanie's Adventures...to Anna's Pond

No lie, we were driving back from our Waipio trip and talking about how much fun it was and that I wanted to do stuff like this every weekend. We decided that there is so much more to Hawaii than meets the eye. Sure, there is all the touristy things you could pay for, but let's be real, I do not want to buy into the tourist scene when I live here. So it's up to us to find our own adventure. Recently, Steve had seen one of his friend's post some pictures from a place called Anna's Pond. It looked amazing. Immediately, I opened up Instagram and searched for #annaspond. I had hundreds of hits, and each picture got me more excited to find this place. Now when I say find, I really do mean search very hard to find. There was a lot of searching and asking to figure out the location of this place. Took us some time, but we finally found it and let me say, it was worth every second we spent investigating.

The hike there took about 20 minutes. Mostly hiking through grassy pasture. We did have to climb down into a small river and then back up the almost vertical hill on the other side. Almost to our destination, we encountered the rope. We had to climb down this rope to get into Anna's Pond. 

              

After climbing down, we had to climb some rocks for about 5 minutes and then....we found it! We knew we were close because there was a family there before we got there, so the screaming children helped lead us there! Luckily, once we got there that family was only there for a few minutes and then we had the pond to ourselves, until the next group of guys got there. 

Off to the right of the pond, is a waterfall. Though it wasn't an intense waterfall, it was still so pretty. Along with the sight of a beautiful waterfall, is the sight of a rope swing calling our names. I want to start with letting you know that I am not the most daring person in the world. Also, water...scares me. Especially water that I cannot see through, unlike most water in Hawaii. But I knew that I had to do it, I had to test myself and prove that I was a little daredevil.

Steve jumped in first. Made me a little less nervous. 

 It took me about 4-5 minutes once I actually climbed up to jump, but I had a lot of verbal support from Steve. 

Overall, it was a great adventure. Our adventure made us hungry, so we stopped off at Big Island Brewhaus. Enjoyed some food and beer. Then headed over to Red Water Cafe for some drinks and the most amazing Mac Nut Pie I have ever had (even though it was only my first time having it). It was like heaven in my mouth. We both had a lot of fun and left Anna's Pond wondering what's on our list for next weekend. 

Stevanie's Adventure Begins...in the Valley

I have no been living in Hawaii for over a year and have yet to experience the wonders of the island. Steve and I have weekends off together, but we always spent them the same way. Hanging out at the beach, Steve would go surfing or paddling, or we would just hang out on Kona side. Now don't get me wrong, we have made sure to fill some of our weekends with adventure. We spent one weekend down south in a great house and explored the volcano.  

But now that I think about it, there is so much more to the island than I realized. The inspiration truly started after we spent last weekend in the Valley. 

Steve had some friends over from Oregon and one of her goals that weekend was to hike to the waterfall in Waipio. Well, I had been down in the valley before but never hiked to the waterfall. So immediately, I was down for the adventure. Little did I know the treacherous journey I was going to make. Once we made it down into the valley, then I received the warnings and I began to get very nervous. Hiking to the waterfall would take about an hour each way and I would have to cross a river, okay cool I don't mind getting a little wet. There were times though that this river was not a shallow, get your shoes wet river, but a deep Stephanie had to doggy paddle across, river.

I made it through the river that we must have crossed at least 6 times. In addition to river crossing, there was rock climbing, tree dodging and a couple slips here and there. All in all, after a little over an hour in, we made it to our destination. Mentioned previously, I had never hiked into Waipio like this so my reaction to the waterfall was very childlike. I was in awe. I felt like I had never seen anything so powerful before. 

We spent about 10 minutes just taking in the beauty of the waterfall and then decided it was cold and wet, so that meant it was time to hike back. The hike back to the truck seemed much faster than the hike out, but I feel like that's true with most things. We finished our adventure at the beach, Steve surfed, or attempted to. Then had some great pizza in town and made our way back home. 

After that adventurous day, I told Steve, it is my goal to do something fun each weekend.