Kauai Day 8

We got up, feasted for breakfast in our kitchen, and headed to the surf shop. Rented a 5’10” skinnier fish board today, and it was definitely the smallest volume board I’ve ridden. It took a minute to catch some, as they were bigger waves that day, but I got some really nice ones, and was psyched on how the board felt. The fins were pretty small, which makes me want to changed out my glassed on fins on my board for fin boxes so I can make different fins for it (already in the process of doing this now!). We went back and cleaned up the room and checked out, and then went back to the beach to surf some more, while Mel went to some shops in town. After this, we returned the board, and headed to Anini beach to make lunch and hang out. We dried out our tent and gear from the two nights before when it poured on us.

The Hanalei Inn

Cozy, awesome setup

Flowers just outside room

Board for the day

Then we headed to Secret Beach, which we read about in our travel book, so it wasn’t so much of a secret, but was very unpopulated, and unmarked. It’s also commonly known as a nude beach, or that it is accepted, so we saw a few people going for it here. The scenery at this beach was pretty awesome, with large trees and rocks, and cliffs right up on the beach, along with a lighthouse on one end. We relaxed here and watched guys surf gnarly waves, then headed out and went to the Kapa’a to hang out and get Thai iced teas again. They were good, but not as good as the first time unfortunately. We headed to Lydgate Beach after this b/c we’d read about it and it sounded cool, but we hadn’t made time to get there. We made dinner here and hung out – it wasn’t as cool of a beach as we thought, compared to others, but it was still nice. We realized we had a few food items, such as peanut butter left over, after we made dinner, and I didn’t want to waste it, so I started eating as much peanut butter as possible, but couldn’t finish it all, as I was already stuffed from dinner when I started, and we even still had leftovers from dinner cuz we were both stuffed. Needless to say, I didn’t’ feel super hot, and Mel also felt stuffed. We returned the car, headed to the airport, and relaxed, trying to help our bellies feel a bit better. We had an overnight flight to Phoenix at least, so we slept most of the way there. Then we got to hang out with Sean, Brad, Brett, and Dylan in Phoenix for our 6 hour layover that I accidentally purchased instead of a 45 minute layover. It worked out though and was super fun to see those dudes! Needless to say, we were exhausted by the time we got to our place that evening. The trip was incredible, and also incredibly exhausting. If you can't tell by now, this island is highly recommended by us, and we are sure to return!

Looking back up the trail down to Secret Beach

Incredibly psyched on life

Secret Beach, pretty empty!

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.

Got these guys out this day

Psyched on the meal!

Ahi, mashed potatoes, and asparagus! so good

Psyched on our trip (and each other)

Kauai Day 6

Waking up at Anini Beach

We woke up at Anini, only about 20 yards from the water, and under trees. This was without a doubt the best camp spot we’d been at. We showered in the outdoor showers, and headed to Hanalei to get some supplies for our big hike today on the Kalaulau Trail, along the Na Pali Coast. Mel went to a coffee shop and I ran into a grocery store. I came out with two bananas and an apple to go along with the oatmeal we’d fix, and Mel came back with a Maui mocha and a cinnamon roll, stating, they looked insane. We were about to go on an 11 mile hike, on what was to be our toughest trail we’d done, and this is what she got, ha. For the record, the cinnamon roll looked incredible and tasted even better. We went to Haena campground to park the car there, although it was a mile from the trailhead, the car would be safer there over night. We packed up and stuck our thumbs out and got a ride with a couple from Idaho who was heading our way. They dropped us off and he headed out. The trail was immediately a steep incline, over big rocks about twice the size of your head, thus we knew this was gonna be serious. The trail was basically up and down into and out of valleys, right from the get go and the entire way. The flat dirt sections were few and far between, so much that you loved them each time you got to a flat section. Each time you hiked out of a valley though, you’d end up on a cliff going around a mountain, up high above the ocean, and each time the view seemed to get better. Sometimes we’d come around the mountain and there’d be huge waterfalls way back up in the valley pouring down, so far away and up high it was almost impossible to gauge how big the waterfalls actually were.

Uphill!

All smiles

This is what you get to look at the entire trail

That water down there is actually that color!

These guys have webs everywhere! They're pretty gnarly looking. Mel saw one on my head the next morning and I freaked!

Other side of things

Beach offerings

That totals to 83 people i think


Beauty

Saw this guy crawling around

We handled the beginning well, with lots of breaks, as we were on no schedule. We planned to be back on the trail and camping for 2.5 days. We’d heard that some of the trail is sketchy and the trail is only a foot wide with a sheer drop right there. This seemed to be the case as a lot of the time the trail was super skinny, with a big drop on your right side, down the mountain and straight to the ocean. We handled it well though and took our time. We got to the camp 6 miles in at about 1:30, which took us about 5 hours to get to. We ate lunch and headed onward. At about 7 miles in, we came to a big valley that didn’t have vegetation like all the other valleys, and it had a sign indicating that the cliffs were crumbling rocks and very dangerous. We scoped it out and started hiking, but almost immediately Mel had a bit of a panic attack, with reason, and we stopped to reevaluate it. We could see the trail along this entire dangerous section (about a ¼ mile long probably) and it seemed that it got worse the farther you went. We decided we didn’t need to risk it and stopped there. We watched another couple do it, so it obviously was possible, but we figured “oh well” we’ll do something else, less stressful, on our vacation, and live to tell about it. So we hiked back a mile to the camp and set up the tent. It was raining in this valley so we hung out in the tent the rest of the evening, except to cook food, which was super good. We were low on water too, which stunk, cuz apparently there was a pig hunt that day and they were cleaning them in or near the water somewhere up stream of us. When you went near the stream, it just smelled of iron/blood, so we didn’t really want to use it to boil and use for food. We did get some rainwater though. It seriously poured that night, and we awoke once to a cat fight outside near our pots. We think one of them stole our red spatula, which we really loved. Bummer. Needless to say, this 8 miles we hiked today kicked our butts pretty bad. We could have made it to the 11 mile camp, but whatever, ha.

Awesome view looking back at what we'd hiked. Check out the width of the trail and positioning

Don't slip

We stopped to take so many photos like this. It was never-ending photo opportunities here



So many cool flowers along the trail too!

Click on this one to check out the waterfalls up in there

Seriously, don't slip

More pretty flowers

Click on this to make it bigger and check out those waterfalls way up there. They're huge!

This photo is slanted b/c I was trying to take a panorama and it was too tall from ocean to mountaintop


Mel smiling with relief after we decided not to go on

Panorama of the sketchy section of the trail. We got about 20 yards in on the right part of the trail. The real sketchy part looked like the section down to the left around the points there.


Maher gathering rain water... we got a little bit this way, ha.

Kauai Day 5

Getting the morning started right

Starting the morning with amazing breakfast of oatmeal and coconut water and went on our way. First stop of the day was the Kilauea Lighthouse, which wasn't open yet but we still enjoyed the pretty view. Then we drove to Princeville where Matt wanted to check out a surf spot. It ended up being a bit too sketchy due to sharp coral reef break. So we headed to Hanalei where we got fancy coffee drinks and food then walked over to Pedal n' Paddle to rent stand up paddle boards because we thought there were no waves in the bay. The man running the store informed us that the bay was getting some waves today and suggested we try the river. With the prospect of waves we left the shop to check out the waves, which turned out to be quite good looking. So surfboards were rented instead. I got a 8 ½' longboard while Matt picked up a 7' Egg-ish style board. I was a bit nervous, but it turned out to be the best experience surfing ever. It was extremely fun and I did better than usual. We were both super pumped to be surfing together. While I took a break, Matt went out and surf for a while by himself. Then we both went out again but I was pooped so I didn't last too long. So during my second break Matt gave my longboard a shot. We went into town to eat lunch and sent out postcards and rewarded ourselves with sweet treats! When we went back to the beach, it had turned cloudy and windy so we returned the boards.

Kilauea Lighthouse

Trying!

Psyched!

Surfing in paradise, no biggie.

Afterwards we went to the grocery store to grab stuff for dinner and headed to Anini for the night. Anini was by far the best place we camped with hardy any locals and fewer roosters. When made an awesome dinner and watched the sun set. We even scored some free lit charcoal from some folks on the beach.

Anini Campsite

Enjoying the sunset

Sunset at Anini

Matt cooking up a feast!