Last day, sad! We
woke up, got all packed up and headed out before the sun was up. We drove towards Wailua where the kayak
rental shop is (and the river, for that matter.) We stopped along the way to find something
for breakfast. We had plans to do the
kayak / hike to Secret Falls, and then the 8 mile Hanakapi’ai hike before we
had to catch our plane that night! I
went into a grocery store and found a few things. Ryan grabbed fast food. By the time we got to the kayak shop we were
a few minutes late.
We had a few different friends tell us about this little
adventure. All said they did not join a
tour, which is great because I did not want to be in a tour. I enjoy exploring on my own, not in a slow,
boring group. So it took some calling
around and messaging my friends to find the right rental place. One place didn’t rent them at all if you
weren’t going on their tour. The other
one said they will rent it but you have to load it on your car and drive it to
the river… But the one place, the best place, said they are located right on
the river and there are little wheels you put the kayak on and just walk it to
the dock. AND they opened earlier, at 7
instead of 8 which meant we got an early start so we had better luck at getting
to the other water fall hike, PLUS we got ahead of the tour groups. AND they gave us the water proof bag and
offered a cooler for free (the other place wanted to charge $4-5 for
each.) So yeah, that’s what we
recommend. The place is called Wailua
Kayak and Canoe. They are all called
similar names so it was tricky finding the right one.
The guy told us where to go, showed us the map, said “I’m
not supposed to tell you this, but if you want to go explore up here if you
have time, you can.” Later we heard from
a friend that they did go up there and met some locals and jumped off some
cliffs. Too bad we didn’t have time!
And we set off. It
was GORGEOUS out!! The sun rising, the
calm river. Heaven!!
When we were planning our trip, the weather forecast showed
rain pretty much the whole time we were going to be there. I was a bit bummed, but I’m not one to let
the weather ruin my fun. I was just fine
getting wet. Of course, I didn’t realize
it would make the trails unavailable because of mudslides and flash floods, or
the river unusable due to overflow… BUT
aside from that one morning we got rained on, the weather was PERFECTION! Not too hot, not too cold. We were mostly shaded during our hikes so we
were comfortable. Sure, I sweated still
because I was wearing three layers since I hadn’t planned on hiking so I didn’t
change into workout clothes. But it wasn’t
bad. Most businesses were outside or
open to the air and we were always perfect.
I’m obsessed.
So when we were getting set to get in the water, I was
nervous it would be freezing since it wasn’t really hot outside at 7:30
am. But it wasn’t. It was great.
And I didn’t have to get that wet anyway. Ryan got ahead of me, but I had to stop a few
times to take some pictures because it was just so amazing!
Turns out he had seen that a tour group was starting off
from the other side of the river and wanted to make sure we got in front of
it. I hadn’t noticed. But we were much faster than them
anyway. Rowing is a good workout! I had asked that we get separate kayaks
because the one other time we have gone kayaking was in Florida with my mom and
we had a double and Ryan did most of the work.
I wanted to do it myself. I didn’t
want to just be his passenger along for the ride. There’s something about using your own body
strength to do things like hiking and swimming or kayaking in nature. Maybe other people don’t understand that, but
I just wanted my own. It took us about
45 minutes I think to get to the trail head.
I tweaked my right forearm somehow while rowing so it was feeling a bit
sore and painful. Then we headed off on
the hike. We can hike pretty fast
(especially when we are wearing proper shoes!)
We stopped to enjoy the beauty a few times, because man it was
beautiful. I’m certain the time of day
made it even better because the sun rays shining through the trees and onto the
stream…
It took us maybe 25 minutes of hiking to get to the waterfall. It was bigger than we had imagined! And fierce!
Some friends told us that it was more like a trickle when they were
there, but with the rain we had gotten, it was big!
And cold!! We were in
the shade and it was like 9 am. But of course you have to swim in the
waterfall. Brr! There were rocks all over the floor, but it
wasn’t very deep. Maybe three feet at
the deepest. There was a sign warning
you to not swim in the water because there is a danger of falling rocks. Thinking of that made me realize how deadly
they could be! So much danger in Hawaii
in the mountains and jungles! But we
swam anyway.
We had just gotten cold enough to get out when the tour
showed up. We had someone snap a picture
of us real fast, and then we headed out.
We didn’t have a towel! I had
left it on the kayak. Whoops. It was only cold for a few minutes
though.
One of many spiderwebs, but this one caught the sunlight so great!
The kayak back was harder.
Not because of the current.
Oddly, the river did not seem to have a current. It looked as if it was standing still
somehow. But my arms were tired. My hurt arm in particular was useless! I was a bit worried, but I was able to change
my grip by twisting my hand and that used different muscles and it still worked
to propel me so yay. I was happy upper body was strong from all the hard
workouts I had done leading up to the trip.
I felt pretty good other than the one tiny sore muscle!
We started heading towards the Northern most part of the
island, or at least the furthest you can drive on the north shore, to get to
the Hanakapi’ai Falls hike. It was a
long drive. And I decided that if this
was my last day in Hawaii, I needed to try one of the shaved ice everyone rave
about. So we stopped in Hanalei and I
waited in line for awhile for a shaved ice.
It was yummy! Coconut cream syrup
on top, some weird island flavors of syrup (lichen? Guava I think, and one
other) with macadamia nut ice cream on the bottom. Yeah, that’s good stuff.
The parking was indeed ridiculous when we got to the trail
head. Can we talk about parking for a
minute? It’s not like in the big city
where there are no parking stalls. But
the parking stalls were tiny! We were
driving a bigger SUV, which worked out nice when we did find a parking spot at
this trail because the lot was a dirt area with huge rocks throughout! I’m not sure how those little convertible
mustangs got in and out. Also, Ryan is
not great at parking. Why is he so
bad? I’m talking 90 degree parking, not
parallel. He admits that he’s
horrible. I’d like to think it’s because
he is used to a smaller car at home, but he says he’s bad at home too. Okay.
Need proof? I snapped this
picture on Spring Break in California, hehe.
By the time we parked and were heading up there, I didn’t
have much hope that we would make it to the waterfall. But we started off at a bit faster pace just
to see. I wasn’t feeling as great as I
would’ve liked (hmm, big sugary sno cone maybe?) and I needed to use the
bathroom, even though I had just went.
There was no place to hide off the trail. It was a steep mountain up on one side and a
steep dropoff on the other. But oh my
was it gorgeous…
The two mile mark was a beach. Well, it was rocks but it was called a
beach. And the waterfall was two more
miles. I didn’t think I would make it
without a bathroom, assuming there wasn’t a bathroom anywhere along the way,
that meant six more miles of hiking.
Unless I could pee in the water at the waterfall I guess. We had been warned by many NOT to swim in the
ocean at the beach on the trail. If the
current pulls you out, it would take a long time for someone to hike back and
get help, and a long time for them to bring a boat around too. I wanted to head back because I also heard
some thunder and felt the wind pick up and started thinking about flash floods
and what not. It really would be
dangerous in the rain. This trail was
heavily trafficked. So Ryan built a rock
tower, and we went on our way.
We had plenty of time since we cut our hike short. We stopped for food at this shrimp place Ryan
had seen on the road. And it was his
favorite shrimp ever. He ordered a
second batch. The guy likes his fried
shrimp and fish n chips.
We got back to drop off the rental car and I took all my
bags into the bathroom so I could change out of my suit, make myself look a
little presentable, and rearrange my bags for the flight. It’s not so fun living out of a car while
doing fun adventures. But the adventures
are worth it. It was an amazing trip and
I could’ve stayed longer. Even though I
missed my kids. I wanted to get the kids
and then come back and stay there forever.
The flight home was miserable. We hung out in the airport for like two
hours, then had an overnight flight where we barely slept. We had a layover in LA and we curled up on
the bench by our gate. It took a long
time but I finally fell fast asleep.
Ryan had to shake me, hard, to get me up when it was time to load our
plane. He said he shook me for awhile,
lol. I was OUT. I would’ve missed the flight if he hadn’t
been there.
But we made it home.
The snow had been like two feet deep covering everything when we
left. And it was GONE. And it was nice out, like 40 degrees. So I went for a run! After I saw my kiddos of course. Kaden was sleeping when we got home, but woke
up shortly after. I ran in to get
him. He looked at me confused for a
minute and then reached for me and gave me a BIG hug. Ryan came in and he lunged for him too. Then we sat on the couch with him hugging
Ryan, then leaning over to hug me, then back to Ryan. So cute.
Man I just love my kids.
So how did the kids do while we were gone? They did not miss us. Not in a mean way, but they were having so
much fun with Grandma and enjoying the warmer weather. Kaden didn’t even miss us. We would FaceTime with them and he would look
at us and smile and say “hi mommy, hi daddy”.
Grandma said he didn’t cry for us at all. I asked Kylee if he was sad and she said
no. The next time we talked to them she
said “I asked him if he missed you and he just shrugged and said, ‘mommy
bye-bye’.” Well okay then. I will try not to be offended.
Grandma is amazing, getting them to all their activities,
and even helping Kylee with a costume for the Greek Festival at the last
minute. We are pretty blessed! I think we should do this every year…
No comments:
Post a Comment