Saturday took us to the north of the island. Our river guide from our kayak adventure had told us about a hike that was along the Napali coast then went inland 2 miles to some awesome waterfalls. This sounded like something we wanted to do, so that’s where we headed. We stopped to see a look out that was recommended to us by the hotel concierge. It was a beautiful view of the ocean and a lighthouse that is being renovated. They let you walk through the lighthouse, but it was closed when we were there. We were too early in the morning. The view was still awesome.
Leonard almost hit one of these geese as we were driving. Later we learned that they are endangered. Good thing we didn’t hit one!
The north side of the island is completely different from the south. The south had all the cliffs and canyons and red dirt everywhere – it is very much like a desert. Yet only 50 miles away on the north side, the island is a tropical paradise with lush greenery everywhere. Amazing. We drove as far north as we could drive and that is where the trail started along the Napali coast that would take us to the water falls. We started a little later then we planned but we were finally on the trail about 11:00 am. The hike was two miles to the beach and then two more miles to the water fall. The trail was rough. It was very slippery and muddy, and if it wasn’t muddy, then you were simply climbing rocks that made up the trail. We saw hikers of all types. Some were running on the trail, some were creeping along, and some were even turning around. This was one time that we were really glad that we didn’t have kids. We made pretty good time going in. The views were awesome as we hiked the coastline from above.
We made it to the “beach” in about an hour. I was glad that this was not our destination. I would have been disappointed. The beach is pretty much non-existent in the winter. The tide is so high, it was just rocks everywhere. We had a granola bar, and kept on hiking.
The second part of the trail was good and bad. There were fewer people on it, so that was good, but the trail was worse. It was very muddy and slippery. We passed some cool things along the way, however. There were bamboo forests that sounded like old, creaking houses as we passed them.
There were also some amazingly large trees. This one is a mango tree, I think….
We could finally see our destination about an hour after we left the beach.
About 10 minutes later we arrived at the water falls. We had lunch and then Leonard took a swim. After he got back, I got in for just a bit. The water was cold, but you can’t hike all that way and NOT get in! The pictures again, don’t show how awesome these 300 foot falls were. We couldn’t get back far enough to get a good picture. But I promise, they were amazing!
After our cold swim, we hiked the 4 miles back to our car. I was exhausted after that. It’s been a long time since I was on a hike – good thing we were at sea level!
We made it to the start point of the hike about 5:00. We soaked our feet in the ocean and I threw away my tennis shoes. They were covered in red dirt mud and I didn’t want to take them in the car. I had brought sandals so I just put my shoes in the garbage and walked away. We went back to the hotel, changed our clothes and went out to dinner. We went to a little café on the side of the road that we had heard about. It’s called the Mermaid Café. Leonard loved it – he ordered fish tacos. It was pretty good – local food. I was exhausted after our long day of hiking and we headed back to the resort. We soaked in the hot tub a bit and then headed for bed. Why does your bed feel so much better after a long, busy day?
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