Link to Days 3 & 4
Day 5 - Tourists/Waimea Canyon. While the others continued the hike on the sketchy Na Pali coast trail, Jason and wished them beautiful weather and decided to do some touristy activities. We ventured to the opposite side of the island to the Waimea Canyon dubbed the "Grand Canyon of the Pacific." The canyon is more than 3,000 feet deep and is home to more waterfalls!
Further up the road was Kokee State Park which offered a view, or so we thought, of Kalalau Valley and the beach where our friends were camping. When we reached the top, this is what we saw:
In this pic, there is a tiny portion of a white cap wave visible where it meets the beach. The fog made the vista seem mystical. Yet we couldn't help feeling a little cheated at the beauty escaping our vision.
So, we returned to the bottom and made plans for a snorkel adventure. During that time, we also viewed another attraction: Spouting Horn. As "water rushes under a lava shelf," it explodes upward through a hole at the surface spraying water. Since the surf wasn't very active that day, we didn't take any pictures. The link gives some good ones, though.
Finally, we had supper at the "World's Westernmost Brewpub" and headed to the Salt Ponds Beach Park to pitch the tent.
One of the interesting parts of traveling is meeting new people. While setting up the tent at Salt Ponds, we met 2 18-year old kids from Whales that were touring North America. Delaying college for a year, they had just hitchhiked through Mexico (with some harrowing tales of bad drivers) and were visiting Hawaii and the western parts of the U.S. How exciting!
Day 5 was also my first night getting pizza. mmmmmmmm. I also had pupu, which means appetizer.
Lastly, I would be remiss if I didn't mention the loud locals on the beach at 2 a.m. determining just how high they could get the tach while in neutral while competing with the sounds of roosters crowing. Ahhhh camping. At least I still had my fluffy camp pillow.
Day 6 - Snorkeling, NTBG, & Clown School Supreme. What a tremendous day! We booked a couple of spots on an inflatable raft once used by the Navy Seals to take us to some great dive sites. Well, we didn't dive, but the snorkeling was AWESOME. Having been my first time, I was ecstatic every time I put my face in the water to open up a new world of coral and fish below. We ventured to another site where we were within arm's reach of giant sea turtles. So amazing! Sadly, our camera was not as fancy as Art's underwater super cool camera, so we didn't get pics.
Next, we took refuge at the National Tropical Botanical Gardens on the Allerton tour. Check out more pics at their website. This 2-hour tour offered us glimpses of amazing plants and natural waterfalls. With several water features, it was noted that not one used a pump of any kind. Rather, the water flow was natural.
Clown School Supreme:
The others had called saying they were off the trail and ready to meet. Making decisions among 6 tired and hungry campers proved to be a lengthy process. Hunger won out with our recommendation to eat at the brewery again. Next came an even more lengthy process--where to pitch our tents. The Corolla car group had a trailblazer book with some "maps" of where to camp.
We decided Polihale State Park would be ideal; with its 17 miles of beach everyone could wake up to a beautiful view and relax in the morning. After some grub, darkness was upon us and we set out to find the park. Through some luck we found the entrance to the park; it looked much like a gate to a field. The sign said "Closed." Huh. Closed. Was it opening tomorrow? Were there hours of operation? Can we slip past the gate?
Kokee State Park was now on the agenda. We would drive 20 miles or so back to Waimea and up the Canyon road to get to the park. In another hour, the tent would be set up and we would be fast asleep. Jason and I had just been discussing how nice it was to drive the country roads without having to worry about deer jumping in to the path of the cars when suddenly we see a bull in our headlights. Holy Cow! (pun intended) We narrowly escaped smashing our fancy rental car into the side of the beast as it moseyed to the side of the road.
At some point, our buddies in the Corolla became the leaders. We entered the park and drove past the lodge and campgrounds. How far was it? Jason remembered a campground farther up the road on the left; however, the trailblazer book indicated camping spots down a gravel road to the right. They turned. We stopped. The gravel road was more like a river road with ruts, holes and mud bogs. They kept going. We stayed stopped. They stopped. We stared at each others' cars in the darkness--neither budging on the right way to go. Finally Jason relented; we turned down the river road. I protested. There were no signs of humans, no lights--just trees. It was slow going due to the rough terrain. After what seemed like hours (which was probably 20 minutes) we found a turn-around spot with some narrow, gravel offshoots that resembled roads. I protested again, "This isn't it." Jason voiced his recollection (again) of campsites on the main, PAVED road. But the other car had THE book that stated the campsites were only 2.5 miles ahead.
However, the "way ahead" was a steep downhill requiring further discussion as to whether or not our rental cars would make it back up the hill should we explore further. Note that this discussion was between Jason and Art. Megan was laughing, I was rolling my eyes, Dave had his head in his hands, and I couldn't see Jenna. Both agreed the cars would make it back up the hill with a justification that the cars had probably already been down this road or had seen worse.
The road we were just on seemed as smooth as the Indy 500 track compared to this new road. We could feel our ears popping from the elevation change as we continued down the "path." In fact, I could see earthen cutouts on either side of us; I just knew we were making our way to the bottom of the canyon. I expressed out loud how thankful I was that I couldn't actually see what was on either side of the corners and sides of the road. Jason also expressed his thanks that I couldn't see. After another elongated period of time, the Corolla stopped in front of us. Art stepped out of the car to investigate an obstacle. When we rolled our windows down we could hear running water; like a river! Indeed he gave the sign to turn around exclaiming that the bridge over this water may or may not be wide enough to fit a car, let alone withstand the weight.
We turned around. (I'm glad I can't see. I'm glad I can't see.) We came to the steepest part of the uphill and waited to see the headlights of our partners. When they came in to view the car hesitated and started to spin. Uh oh. Is this really happening? No, we got some traction and continued up the hill without incident. Through the deafening silence in our car, Jason started laughing. It was funny....and I might even go so far to say, typical.
At last everyone agreed to go back to the paved road to look for campsites. As Jason predicted, they were less than 2,000 feet from where we had turned off. We rolled in to the parking lot almost 2 hours after supper. As all but one of us laughed, Dave took his head from his hands and stated, "That was Clown School Supreme."
The tents went up quickly; it was a cold night.
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