Yesterday the Hart family trekked into new waters...literally. I was reading an Oahu travel book a few weeks ago and discovered there are several waterfalls here on the island that we have NOT seen...so we must go and see them all. I had actually tentatively planned to go see 2 yesterday...it was a little ambitious. We drove to Kailua and found the trail for Maunawili, which is actually in a neighborhood and started off. It's a really, really long hike (well, for me anyway...1.5 miles EACH way!) and took a good hour to get to the falls. It was muddy and wet, but so very beautiful. At one point we were literally in the tree tops and could look out over Kailua and see the ocean from the top of the this mountain. You cross a stream a billion times (ok, 4) and then you are there. It's worth it...but like Diamond Head I must say that now I've done it, I'm not sure I'll go back. The water was very refreshing and we had a fun time watching people jumping into the pool at the bottom of the falls. CRH did it a few times...none of the pics I took turned out great, but here's one.
Eve and CRH hiked up the waterfall and apparently at the top was another smaller falls. I stayed with our stuff (and I was tired). It took us about 3 hours total and we were nasty, filthy, and dirty at the end...covered in mud.
After a little lunch, we headed to Lanakai to go to the beach. All I wanted in life was to float in the water and soothe my aching body and wash off the layers of mud. When we first got to the beach, it was a little windy and I wasn't sure I was getting in, but CRH got in and convinced me the water was great. As I was about waist in, this lady came up and told us that the waters were swimming with Portuguese Men (Man?) of War and that about half of her party had been stung. We promptly retreated to the sand...damn it! Sure enough, we saw a ton of them washed up on the shore. They are actually really pretty creatures. If you have not seen one, they are clear and very small (like about the size of a quarter) and have brilliant blue tentacles. The bright side to our beach excursion was that we saw 2 sea turtles swimming right off the shore! It taunted me because I knew I could not get in and swim with them without risking stinging and severe pain.
Alas after this hike, we were all too exhausted to make to the other falls...we shall save that for another weekend.
2 comments:
When we talked to Eve last night she entertained us royally by telling us all about the hike, the mud and the "huffing and puffing breaks" on the way up the mountain. We loved that!!
Yeah I thought it was a pretty BIG hike...I was impressed I made it!!! We really didn't take enough water...I had no idea how hard it was going to be...but it was worth it!
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