We woke with the sunrise, which was beautiful on the beach, even if it was mostly hidden behind the eastern cliff of the valley. We enjoyed breakfast and coffee on the beach, watching with interest a kayak group at the far end launch in the crashing waves. We then packed up a day pack to hike to the closest of the waterfalls. A route starts from the end of the campground at campsite #9 so we made our way over. As most everyone had left this morning, it gave us an opportunity to scope out the campsites. Campsite #3's western most tent site we thought was the best: off the shared walkway (private) up against a low rock wall to protect it from the beach right on the other side but with an unobstructed view of the valley. Our campsite #1 took second place with a very large tree & rock wall protecting us from the beach right on the other side, a nice kitchen area with plenty of flat rocks to sit/cook on, and quite private. The valley view is slightly obstructed but not bad by any means. Campsite #9 took third place: very large, private, and sheltered with a nice view of the ocean but the valley view is completely obstructed.
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| Dramatic sunrise from camp |
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| Dramatic sunrise from camp |
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| Ocean view from camp |
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| Valley view from camp |
We followed the route to the waterfall. Most of the route is tagged by ribbon however all the little trails braid back and forth so it's not imperative to follow the ribbons. It took us about 40 minutes to get to the pool. It was a very pretty waterfall. Mat jumped in and started swimming towards the falls but then thought twice and came back to the shallower end. Sure enough, a few minutes later two hand-sized rocks released from the cliff and splashed into the pool near Mat! OK then. It was fun to check out the waterfall, although tourist sight-seeing helicopters would swoop in every 20 minutes or so.
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| Waimeo valley, our goal is to get to that waterfall |
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| Swimming in the waterfall pool |
After spending some time there, we headed back to camp. We packed up, crossed the creek at the fast & shallower end next to the beach - moving across just fine - and started up the cliff trail. We made good progress heading back, stopping briefly along the way to chat with people and, of course, swim in Mat's hole. We made it back to the car around 4:45 PM. We were starving but the ice cream shop was closed already, which was quite disappointing to us. We hit the road having only a few hours of sunlight left to get to our reserved campsite at Spencer Beach Park. However, as we got into the town of Waimea, we decided that we stank too much from our hike, we needed to do some laundry, and we were starving so we decided to get a hotel in town.
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| Hiking out of the valley back to Waimio |
We booked a room at Kamulea, showered, then hit up Big Island Brewery, a small brewery that sold beer locally and served only Mexican food. This place was packed so we stole ourselves the last two seats in the corner of the bar. Food and beers were great, the live music wasn't too bad either. After stuffing ourselves, we headed back to the room to pass out.
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