May 27, 2010

This is a typical breakfast on the boat. I figured I might need the energy for the hiking of the day. They have different kinds of pancakes everyday.

We made our way into town on a free shuttle and then picked up another shuttle that we thought was the bus. It turned out this shuttle just took us to the real bus. We waited for that bus with the roosters that wander the streets. The "real" bus was another shuttle but it ran a longer route.

Once we got to the farthest stop on the bus route, we were encouraged to hitch a ride to the trail head seven miles away. We did just that. A nice couple picked us up (they moved here from New Jersey two years ago, interestingly) and took us up to the top, giving us pointers and directions on where we should hike.

We started on the Kalalau Trail after checking the map and getting some Lychee fruit from a guy that was selling bags of it from his car. It tasted like a grape but not as hard. Very good though.

The first part of the trail was rocky and looked like the entrance to the jungle; just what I had hoped for. The rocks were wet and slippery at certain points from streams that poured over the trail. It soon changed to a dirt path that wound up the mountain in switchbacks before another rocky climb.

We got a nice view of the NaPali Coast from the first overlook of the trail. It ran mainly along the edge of the mountain so we could see the ocean on the right unless we were below the tree line.

After a while we began descending into the valley along the edge of the hills. The view along the coast was great and the low-lying clouds capped the top of the mountains.

When we got close to the beach we were presented with this warning. I didn't want to be one of the tick marks so I decided not to go swimming.

The trail changed direction again and began heading back up into the rainforest. This was the real jungle that I was looking for. There were bamboo groves, giant palm trees, ferns and mountain streams that cut through the path. It's one of the wettest places on earth and it rained on us quite a bit as we walked through. We were warned at a stream crossing that it was a little late and raining for us to finish our trek to the falls but I didn't want to stop.

I'm glad we didn't decide to stop. We finally got a sight of the massive waterfall, cascading down the side of the cliff from an unseen stream above.

The waterfall sprayed a refreshing mist all the way over to where we stood at the edge of the pool.

This is my favorite place so far on the trip. I don't think anything will top this. The hike was long but this was totally worth it. The sound of the rushing water drowned out everything else and it felt like I was alone there.

We didn't want to leave but it had taken us longer than expected to get there and we had to start heading back down the exhaustingly long trail we had just traveled.

We rushed as fast as we could over the muddy ground, rock scrambles and stream crossings. It wasn't easy to move fast with all of the obstacles in our way but we did pretty well. The trail felt even longer on the way back. If I wasn't wet from the waterfall I would have been from sweat after so many steep uphill climbs and the rocks I had to maneuver around, all while attempting not to slip off the side.

Once we got to the bottom it was almost time for the bus to show up and we still had to find a ride back to the bus station. An older couple, Marshall and Joann, graciously let us hitch a ride and then proceeded to chase the bus through several stations since we were too late for the one we had taken before. They dropped us at a stop just before the bus was supposed to arrive. After it didn't show up I called and they sent another bus for us.

We got this bus, which was out of service, all to ourselves, and the ride back to our boat, where the other bus wouldn't even have taken us, only took about fifteen minutes. That's service.

I was so hungry when we got back since I only had a banana throughout the day. We got dinner and I read for a while before bed.

The bus took us most of the way up the beautiful coast of Kaua'i and I wish we could have seen more. Total distance: about 85 miles.