Maha'uelpa and Ha'ula Beach Hike

I told Joanne that this would be mostly a hiking vacation, but the mountains are too steep and muddy to tackle this trip.  So, we are staying to beach hikes.

These two beaches were listed in last month's Outside Magazine as Hawaii's best two beaches.  I don't know if I would say that, but it was a fun day hike.

My friend Gary is a geologist, and gave some pointers on cool geology to look for.

We crossed ancient lithified sand dunes that are being eroded by the ocean.

And crossed active sand dunes that are being deposited today.  Pretty cool!

I thought I wanted to ....

I have always thought that if I come back in another life, that I would want to be one of the Morrow or Kriz's cats.  They live a pretty pampered life.

But then I saw how Monk seals are treated in Hawaii.

Volunteers put these signs around the Monk seal, and cordon off the area so the seal has it's own private beach area to take a nap.

Pretty nice!  If your a seal that is.

Waimea Canyon

The grand canyon of the pacific.   It was spectacular!

The hiking was tough where we went.  Slick mud, and very steep!  Really slow going, and easy to slip and hurt something.

Occaisionaly the clouds would thin out and we would get awesome views of the high plateau canopy, and a slight glimpse of the coast.  Which was 3,000' almost straight down from the edge of the trail.

It would give you creepy vertigo when you were looking over the edge.



Kuhio Shores

We went from Gary's place on the North side of the island, to stay in a condo complex on the South side named Kuhio Shores.

This is a view from our patio.

Excellent snorkeling on both sides of the condo complex.

Suit up in your condo and 5 minutes latter you are in the ocean!

At least a dozen restaurants within a mile walk, but we ate most of our meals on our patio.  You just could not beat the view.

The people watching was also superb!

Surfers, snorkelers, scuba divers, sun worshipers, outrigger canoers, paddle boarders, catamarans, boats, and even weddings to watch - right from our patio!

What will always remind me of Kauai - Chickens!

There are chickens everywhere in Kauai, except in the ocean!  Housing communities, shopping centers, national parks, golf courses, on the beach, or deep into the bush - they are everywhere!

They are beautiful, and I loved seeing them!

However, hearing the roosters from 3 am in the morning until about 8 am gets a little old!

The island does not have mongooses, like the other islands so the chicken population thrives.  

The mongooses were brought in to control the rats, but there was one small problem.  Rats run around at night and mongooses run around during the day.  So, no rat control.

While off loading the mongooses imported to Kauai, the person bringing them to the island got bitten.  So, that batch went swimming in a cage and Kauai never got mongooses.

Beach Time and more Beach Time

We are not lay around at the beach all day type of people.  But we do like long walks, and more long walks on the beach. 

Gary's place sits right above a really cool beach area, and we made multiple trips down to it.

The people watching was almost as fun as watching the ocean, but I was too polite to be taking their photos and settled for the polite glance.

Short Hike on the Na Pali Coast

We took Gary's advice and got on the road early our first day for a short hike on the Na Pali coast, starting at Ke e Beach.   

The road was just opened that morning after being closed for six days due to rain run off damage.  We were told that it rained 45" in one week.  I don't know if that is true, but you could sure see that there was a lot of damage.

Our morning started with a sun shiny day, and we were bummed to come to the trail head and see the trail was closed.  There was also a hand written note that said that there was a fatality at Hanakapi'ai Creek crossing 6 days earlier. ( Our destination )

We had heard the beach was one of the 5 most deadliest beaches in the world, but we were not planning on swimming, just hiking.

So, after a little discussion we realized what our friends Mike and Lowry would do on a sunny day like we were experiencing.  We looked both ways, and started our hike which quickly rose above the beach to a stunning view!

The views down the coast are amazing!

We made it to the stream crossing and found these signs warning about the dangers.  There are 82 hashers signifying fatalities.  I don't know if this is an accurate count after looking latter on the internet.  However, there are many and I found it was sadly true that a woman was washed away at the stream crossing 6 days earlier.

The day was sunny, the stream was managable and we scampered across with almost dry feet!

There was cool stone art on the stone beach above the sand.  There was also wicked wave action that we watched with awe and did not go down to the sand portion of the beach.

There was also really cute feral cats hanging out in the rocks, and I spent my time trying to coax them over for some quality time verus getting their pictures.

We canceled our plans to hike the 2 miles up to the waterfall.  The trail was still too muddy from all the previous rain.  So, we enjoyed our hike back along this beautiful coast looking forward to the rest of our vacation.

North Shore Kauai

I went and saw my friend Gary who I know from the oil industry when I knew Joanne and I were going to Kauai for vacation.

Gary has been to Kauai many times and I wanted to ask what he would do if he had a couple of days planed for the North Shore.  He was quick with his answer, "first - stay at my place".

So, we took him up on his offer - it was an amazing place to stay at!  Gary has been working on getting it built for over a decade.   The detail in the building was amazing to see.

It was in a excellent location to explore the North Shore for a couple days  :)

Done Before our Hawaii Trip :~)

Joanne and I are going to Kauai for vacation, and my goal was to get my storage center that Norm built me painted and finished before I left.   Whooyah!   Done!

Now its time to go on vacation!

Inside Projects

It has been a snowy then a very windy February, so I decided to get a couple inside projects done.

I finally got around to finishing the storage cabinet I had built.   I knew it was going to be putsy work and had not been motivated to tackle it.

I was right, it was putsy work.  I now know why Norm didn't want to paint the stiles and varnish the drawers.  :~)