A Golden Experience

7/5/2016

What do you do on your final day in Hawaii?! One last hike of course! Fourth of July was our final day in Hawaii and we had one last place we wanted to visit before flying back to the mainland. Cameron and I planned to hike to the Golden Ponds at Ke-awa-iki early so that we could get back to spend the rest of the day with the family. Since we intended on swimming in the Golden Ponds neither Cameron or I brought our actual cameras for this adventure so anything you see is from my iPhone. The layout of the hike was simple. Park...hike down some crazy jagged lava...hike the black sand beach....stray off course and find the ponds! In case you have any doubt like I did...the Golden Ponds are in fact quite golden. Hidden among all the lava rock is a gorgeous gold pond of freshwater that you can swim in.

As promised...they really are golden!
Adventure began as soon as we arrived. We pulled into the parking lot which is just flattened lava rock and Cameron and I got to witness two girls rough up their car as they went flying over bigger chunks of lava. Instead of stopping to avoid the massive obstruction they thought trying to run over the lava would be good for their front bumper. It wasn't.

After staring for a bit Cameron and I started the hike down to the black sand beach. You have a super narrow path to follow that is lined with lava and barbed wire. Basically don't fall because either way you're going to get banged up. We didn't get any pictures here because we were too busy trying not to fall on our faces. The path merges with the black sand much like the Sea Turtle Hike. We had a little hike along the water which was gorgeous. We didn't see too many other faces so we enjoyed the peace, waves and scenery. I wanted one last swim in the salt ocean so I ran in while Cameron watched. After making our way along the beach we had to turn off and take a short hike to find the ponds. You follow a narrow lava path up a hill and boom there they were!

I spy Cameron
Cameron and I lucked out being the only two people at the ponds so we swam around in the freshwater admiring the gold tint. The rocks are super slippery because the gold algae grows on them so you have to be careful not to walk on them. After a nice cool off we decided to make the hike back so we could have time with the family for the 4th. We were excited to see some fireworks...but it ended up being cloudy up on the mountain so instead we just enjoyed some awesome company!