BY KELLY H. MORAN | Until just a few years ago, Hwy 137 along the Puna coast was paved with locally quarried red cinder. Though it’s conventionally paved now, a rather standard gray-black color, local folks still call it “The Red Road.” And it’s still very narrow, with many blind hills and curves, weaving and undulating through stands of giant mango trees.

Pay attention, and drive carefully.

Several small churches and tiny cemeteries lie along the road, the graves carefully tended and strewn with flowers. They are a legacy of how long-settled this part of the island has always been, despite incursions of lava. Signs give the dates of some flows, so you can see the progress in the advance of vegetation: lichen and ferns first, then grasses and ohia trees.

You can expect Isaac Hale (rhymes with “pail”) Beach Park to be crowded with families, because it’s just about the only place along the coast where it’s safe to get into the ocean for a swim, or launch a small boat.

By contrast, the ocean at Mackenzie State Park is practically inaccessible; but the ironwood forest there is a nice place to picnic, and to walk the “King’s Trail” along the coast.

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