Over the last few days we’ve had a real mix of long, difficult hiking and chill out time by the pool or at happy hour.

Ha’ena State Park and Hanakāpī’ai Waterfall

On Sunday we went to Ha’ena state park which is on the North shore of the island, and requires you to get a shuttle bus from a park and ride area just to get there. Because the shuttle is booked in advance and it’s a very popular place to visit, we had to get up and be out of our apartment by 6.30am! So it was an early wake-up and then leaving while it was still dark. We got to the park and ride by 7.20am, in time to get on a bus 20 minutes earlier than the one we had booked (they had room!) and it took around 30 mins to get from there to the park itself. It was light by the time we got there thankfully, and at least in the morning it is cooler for walking.

We had gone to Ha’ena state park to do one of the most popular hikes in all of Hawaii, along a section of the Napali coast you can actually get to, to the Hanakāpī’ai Valley, including Hanakāpī’ai Beach and Hanakāpī’ai Waterfall. We originally planned to just do the 2 miles to the beach which is the most popular stopping point, before doing the return journey which would normally take around 3 – 4 hours total anyway. It was a steep and difficult trail, you really had to watch your footing and at the end to get to the beach you had a pretty tricky river crossing as well.

We knew that it was a very tough and rugged trip to get to the next stop of the trail which takes you inland, down the valley to a massive 300 foot waterfall, but that was another 4 miles there and back and would take an additional of 3 – 4 hours as well since it was very steep and rugged terrain and involved a lot of bouldering and clambering as well as another 4 river crossings (2 small but 2 pretty tricky and large).

Anyway, because we’d gotten there quite early we….sorry, I mean Lucy decided that we should do the waterfall section as well so we ventured on down the valley. That section was challenging but fairly fun on the way there, and the waterfall at the end was amazing. Lots of people were swimming in the pool there and under the waterfall too.

The hike back was not so much fun. We’d already been hiking/climbing for about 3.5 hours by this time and the prospect of going all the way back was not attractive. The river crossings were difficult, the trip was slow and difficult, and by the time we eventually (finally) got back to the shuttle bus we were both knackered. I think this was the hardest hike we’d done, even more so than the very steep Angel’s Landing hike in Zion, which although tough and steep, was at least a flat and even surface pretty much the whole way, and was “only” about 3.6 miles round-trip distance.

This hike was a total of 9.5 miles and we didn’t get back to the shuttle until about 2pm, having been out from 7.45am. It was a great thing to see, but a real challenge. We were both very sore the rest of the day.

A day off

On Monday we had a nice lazy day, basically staying in at our apartment. We sat by the pool for a lot of the morning, and then in the afternoon went out to a couple of local happy hours. We tried the Napali Brewing Company which was only about 10 mins walk away, then went back to the Lava Lava Lounge where we’d been earlier in the week for some drinks at the bar near the sea front with some live music on too.

Waimea Canyon

Today was our last day on Kauai, before we move on tomorrow to the Big Island. We drove to the other side of the island, which took about 1hr15, to go and visit Waimea Canyon. We’d seen some of this from the air during our helicopter tour, and it’s described as “the Grand Canyon of Hawaii”. We decided to do what was described as a “moderate hike”, but which ended up being a pretty strenuous and steep up and down climb, down in to a section of the canyon and to a smaller waterfall at the end. It was about 3.7 miles round-trip and a nice walk in the forest and shade.

We then drove the scenic drive to the end of the park area, did another short 2 mile round-trip walk to Pu’u O Kila lookout point as the road was closed at the top, and then another one at Kalalau look-out on the way back.

We are planning to go out for some food and a couple of drinks locally on our last night shortly, before moving on to the next island tomorrow.

Si