A Fed Bear Is A Dead Bear: Kauai Day 7

We got a little bit of sleep the past night, although it was off and on due to pouring rain, and cat fights. We got up, packed, and headed out down the trail by 6 AM. We still smelled the blood as we passed the creek by camp. We were definitely pretty beat from the day before, but we were getting an early start, so we’d take our time. One thing we noticed is that since we’re the first ones on the trail in the morning, there’s lots of new spider webs to go through, and get stuck on you. This resulted in one of those spiders being on my head at one point, but luckily Mel saw it and swiped it away. About 2.5 hours into hiking, we finally came up on hikers coming our way, which was to see other people and talk for a minute before moving on. After a while, there were many people passing us going towards the camps, and it was sometimes a bit hard to find a place to stand off the trail as others passed, due to it being so skinny. I won’t go into it, but we were getting tired quick. We made it to the 2 mile in beach, and relaxed for a minute. From the cliffs above, I saw some guys pulling into big barrels while surfing, probably 8 foot waves that looked pretty gnarly, so that provided some cool scenery, not that we needed anymore than we were getting. The mile from mile marker 2 to mile marker 1 seemed to be the longest thing ever and almost totally up a steep incline, and in the sun. I think neither of us talked from mile marker 2 to 1, and then barely any from marker 1 to the start. We immediately got water and then went and jumped in the ocean and relaxed. I tried hitching a ride to the car while Mel waited with the stuff, but I ended up having to walk the mile to the car – I think having Mel with me woulda helped get a ride.

We enjoyed the flowers along the way

The final climbs seemed endless!

Big waves down below

We then drove to Hanalei, our new favorite town, and saw Hanalei Inn, which we’d read about in our travel book as a cheap, nice place. We stopped in and they had one room open, so we went for it. We deserved it! It was awesome. We went to the beach and hung out, body surfed with my handboard, and just relaxed. Unfortunately the waves were closeouts mostly, so no great rides, but some fun drop ins still. This was the first time I’d been trying out my new handboard too! Then we got stuff from the grocery store to cook that night, as the inn had a fully furnished kitchen! We cooked an awesome meal, and were both psyched. We then went to the beach and took a long walk to enjoy the ocean and night sky.