Valley Hike and Body Bashing
Trip Start
Feb 19, 2010
1
169
257
Trip End
Jan 31, 2012
Where I stayed
Honokaa, Hawaii
Thursday, March 3, 2011
Nice transit on the bus around the North East coast of the island to get to Honokaa. Could see lots of steep cliffs and gullies rising up about the sea floor from the road. could check in til 4pm so stopped off at a diner to have lunch and wait for an hour or so to pass.
After checking in looked into getting a bike for the next day to ride to the valley but could get through to the guy. Chatted with the nice lady who runs the place and had a dorm to myself.
Didnt do much after checking in except wander around town a bit, visit the supermarket and watch a few videos on the computer.
Day 2 - Waipo Valley
Managed to get through to the guy who hired mountain bikes and ended up deciding to hire a bike at $20 a day. Given a shuttle cost $30 each way (4 times a day but need min of 2 people) and I didnt really feel like hitching, the bike or wlaking were my only two options. Since It was 9 miles (15Km) I would loose most of the day on the road if I decided to walk.
Ride to the valley wasnt to bad. A bit of up, a bit of down and the last 2 miles all up. Will all the up at least it meant that the ride home would be easier. Had some nice views of the ocean along the way as well as a eucalyptus forest and some cows eating grass in a pasture.
After getting to the valley I locked the bike to a pole and took some photos from the lookout. Seems like a nice valley which runs from a beach by the coast back up into the mountains. Headed down the steep path and then left to have a look at the dry water fall. Failed to take photos here because of the sun and since I expected to head back again down the short trail (which I forgot to do) later.
Could really do any exploring in the valley since most of it was private land so headed around and back down to the beach. This beach was basically lines with a small forest and had lots of black sand. Guess thats what happens when the volcanic rock gets pummelled.
Decided to wander along the beach to the other side of the valley and follow the trail up the other side and into the forest on the other hill. This involved taking my shoes off and having to wade across teh river that was dumping into the see. Ended up being a bit trickier than initially expected since the spot I chose had a couple of deep parts and lots of round slippery rocks.
After making it across the beach decided to try and knock a coconut out of a palm with a rock but had no luck. Guess you really need to climb up the palm to get them and given the hieght of teh things I had no intention of doing that.
Wandered up the path to the top of the other side of teh valley. While it was steep and hot going (lots and lots of sweat) it wasnt a particularly long walk compared to Volcano NP. Beside I didnt have my big pack on. Had lots of nice views of the valley from the other side on the way up and found myself in a nice forest at the top.
Once again lots of bird sounds throughout the forest and some large and interesting trees. Ended up walking to the first of the 5 helipads that appear before you reach the next valley and would of sat for a bit and had lunch if it wasnt for the fact that there were so many mosquitos. Was also thinking it would have been nice to have hike to the end of the trail and of camped at the valley at the other end. Even if I didnt go the whole way I could have found somewhere near the trail to pitch a tent. Unfortunatley I had been to lazy to organise the permit (and the transport required). Besides which I would have wanted 2 night rather than 1 to explore the valley and I just didnt have the time to do that before the dive I had reserved for Friday night.
Ended up hiking back down and back across the beach. Given it was so early in the day still (about 2pm) decided to risk my camera and backpack and go for a swim. Ended up treading water/floating for about an hour while I waited for and body surfed just over half a dozen waves. Some of these waves were quite big and on the second one on particular I got dropped from the top and then dumped on by the wave. Ended up with a couple of mouthfuls of water, some of which Im sure ended up in my lungs given the coofing and sick feeling I had for the next 5 minutes.
That the one problem with body surfing. There is nothing under you to keep you afloat (so hard to see when you should be heading down the face of the wave) and if you loose form you start to roll and eventually get dumped of the top and dumped on by the wave. On my 4th or 5th wave got dumped again but had the sense to stay under the water for a bit so the rest of the wave had time to pass by and not throw me around when I came up for air. All in all good fun and styed out until the waves started to get sloppy and the sets of nice waves started to get far apart.
Final part of the day was a long steep uphill slog to get out of the valley and back to the bike which I then had to ride back to town. By this point my legs were getting a bit tired so I was happy that it was only 9 miles and had at least as much down (if not more) as up hill. Got back returned the bike, had something to eat and called it a day by spending the afternoon watch some more of the videos I had downloaded onto the laptop. Should probably have been trying to catch up on the blog which is something like 6 weeks behind but wasnt in the mood.
