CTHikergal Travels

Disclaimer:  The first hike described in my blog post today, can be dangerous, do this at your own risk.  In no way am I encouraging this hike, this is merely a description of our day. 

No, we didn’t have a rainbow morning. We made sure our breakfast was very colorful to make up for the lack of a morning rainbow.

White pineapple vs. yellow pineapple

colorful juices

french toast special

While enjoying breakfast we made our plan to go beach exploring.  Our first stop was a return visit to Kahili Beach and to see if we could make it over to the Pools of Mokolea. This time it was lower tide which made the stream crossing safe to do. We crossed the stream, walked up a dirt road to the lava rocks and spent our morning rock hopping to take in the views.  I felt like a little kid again, rocking hopping, investigating the pools and just exploring.  When I turned the corner to see the lighthouse, I let out a huge gasp, and just exclaimed “Oh WOW”.  I think Mike and I didn’t stop smiling for the longest time.

We did wear water shoes/trail runners with excellent traction.  We also kept an eye on the ocean and tried not to turn our back on it.  The photos where we have our back to it, is up against a large rock, so if a rogue wave hit us, it wouldn’t suck us out to the ocean.

The stream crossing, do at low tide

the road to walk on

path walking

lava pools

rock hopping

hey can you see the lighthouse?

as we left the parking area this little surfer girl came strolling by with her dad

After this adventure of rock hopping, we headed over to Waiakalua Beach to perhaps do more rock hopping.  The trail to this beach was steep and I’m so glad I a had hiking pole and weren’t in flip flops.

The views from the top and first part of the down trail were stunning.

At the end of the trail, we turned left and went that way.  As we walked down a little way, a woman sitting down asked if we knew about monk seals and how far to stay away from them.  I let her know one of my dream retirement volunteer jobs is to be that person putting the ropes around the beached monk seals. Of course hearing there was a monk seal, my pace picked up.

By the time we walked back to the path, our legs were tired, so decided to wait for another day to go explore the right side of the beach.

We needed to find a lunch spot and for some reason I was craving a burger.  Mike suggested we head into Wailua and try Street Burger. We are so happy we did this. The local beef for the burgers were outstanding, the buns delicious; made at the local bakery and even the ketchup was house made.  Next time we come in, we will split a burger and make sure we have room for dessert!

We had one final touristy stop to make on way home, Mark Zuckerberg’s wall. It is a very nice wall.

All this rock hopping and rich food made us very tired, so home we went.  Once home I napped, then we cooked up dinner of the gifted ahi and headed off to sunset.

We saw many colors today; from blue and orange of our morning drinks, to the blues and greens of the ocean, to the black lava rocks and to the yellow glow of the setting sun. Our day was rich and full of color.