Big Island 5
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Big Island 5

A cycling route starting in Leilani Estates, Hawaii, United States of America.

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Overview

About this route

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429 Ole Ole Street, Pāhoa - 28-1435 Old Mamalahoa Highway, Pepeekeo

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Duration
77.4 km
Distance
714 m
Ascent
288 m
Descent
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Avg. speed
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Avg. speed
hpl

created this 5 years ago

Route highlights

Points of interest along the route

  1. Point of interest after 12.6 km

    The Pohoiki warm springs are part of the Isaac Hale Beach Park in Puna. The 2018 LERZ eruption has changed Pohoiki Beach Park significantly and now it is home to the newest black sand beach on the Big Island! This is a beautiful beach and well worth a visit. It also created four Natural Ocean Thermal Ponds that are contained by all the new black sand. The Department of Health warns that these ponds are not disinfected and that, due to the risk of bacterial infections, the public should not enter these ponds if they have open wounds

  2. Point of interest after 25.4 km

    Pahoa From there it's an easy ride back to Pahoa, whose cute old main street looks like a frontier town reimagined by the sarong, massage, patchouli and sensimilla brigade. Definitely stop at the shop with the pink Ice Cream Boulevard sign, which sells Hilo Homemade Ice Cream: tangy ginger, chewy coconut, cocoa-rich chocolate macadamia nut and more

  3. Point of interest after 54.7 km

    Mid Pacific Wheels Bike Store 1133 Manono St # 4, Hilo, HI 96720, United States

  4. Point of interest after 57.1 km

    Ratana's Green Papaya Salad 191 Kilauea Ave, Hilo, HI 96720, United States Ratana's Green Papaya Salad stall, serving what may be the best version east of Thailand, a lime-and-chili slap on the palate. This pair—bland musubi and vivid Thai salad, cheek by jowl—touch on something essentially Hawaiian. You can eat across from the market under a giant banyan tree; the banyans in Hilo's parks are magnificent: giant, sprawling umbrellas that give, beneath, a gloomy live oak sanctuary

  5. Point of interest after 67.8 km

    Hawaii Tropical Botanical Gardens are out favorite botanical gardens on the Big Island. In the gardens you can see over 2000 different species of plants and trees and a visit here is a must-do for everyone with green fingers! Directions: To get to the gardens turn makai (towards the ocean) between mile marker 7 and 8 on Hwy 19 coming fron Hilo, onto the scenic drive in the direction of Onomea Bay. Continue for 1.75 miles to reach the Hawaii Tropical Botanical Gardens. The hike: there is no real hiking needed here, more a slow meandering around the gardens for a few hours. The self-guided tour is just over one mile long (round trip) and takes about 1.5 to 2 hours. If you would want to go on a longer hike you can take the 2.5 miles (round trip) donkey trail down to Onomea Bay and Turtle Cove whose trailhead is just outside the gardens. As an added extra, to get to these gardens you have to take one of the most scenic drives of the Big Island! Admission to the gardens: Take note, admission to the gardens is not free. The fee for one day is $20 for adults and $5 for children ages 6 to 16. Children under 6 are free (2019 rates). The gardens are opened daily between 9 am and 5 pm, but the latest admission is at 4 pm. You receive a trail guide when you purchase your ticket to the gardens. Try not to miss the bird aviary and the seascapes at the lower end of the gardens. Take some time to sit down and take in the sights, smells, and sounds at different places to get immersed in this peaceful place. This is by far our favorite botanical garden on the island The Onomea falls are located inside our favorite botanical garden on the Big Island: the Hawaii Tropical Botanical Gardens.

  6. Point of interest after 69.9 km

    What's Shakin Stall smoothie stand, which served the best smoothie we encountered on the Big Island.

  7. Point of interest after 72.1 km

    Turn off to Akaka Falls State Park here, or in the next Village we decided to do the short warm-up ride to Akaka Falls State Park we'd planned for the following morning; the notoriously rainy local weather had broken, pouring sun onto steamy Hilo green. The ride caused me, the spectacularly less fit, to believe that cycling would now kill me. It began innocently in Hilo with a flat few miles on Highway 19, then a right along Scenic Drive at about mile 5. What a great introduction to the island this drive is, as if you've pedaled back in time 30 years, onto an old country-coastal byway. You pass simple, Old Hawaii houses, deserted craft galleries and the occasional big estate. The road is quiet and lovely, pinched here and there by old stone one-lane bridges, with lots of gentle ups and downs and blind turns. The first stretch is mostly in woods, and the pavement is perfumed and slick here and there with fallen guava. We stopped on a bridge to watch kids jump 30 feet into a roiling cauldron of water. Soon the road moved into open land, an almost English-countryside view but for the palm trees. Hills gently sloped down to the brazen blue water. You rejoin Highway 19 for a couple of busy miles until the left turn to a road that heads up to Akaka Falls. This is where the trouble began. On my jet-lagged and dehydrated body, the half hour of climbing turned out to be a bit more than a warm-up. There is something about steamy air that can induce a sensation of not being able to breathe, even as you're sucking it in. Akaka Falls consists of a needle-thin cascade dropping several hundred feet against a distant green-black cliff; it's worth the brief walk in, on the paved path, for the view, but you need one person to watch the bikes in the parking lot. The ride back begins with a spectacular plummet toward that crazily blue sea, then hooks back to the Old Onomea Road with a stop advised at the What's Shakin' smoothie stand, which served the best smoothie we encountered on the Big Island. A detour is also advised at the Alea Cemetery, on Highway 19 near town, which is ruled by a solemn banyan and divided into ethnic and religious sections: Mormons here, Japanese there, Chinese there, a portrait in death of a town much more casually integrated in life

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