Woken by rosters as expected. The sunrise was just as beautiful as the sunset though, and we enjoyed the peace and quiet of the early morning. We packed up and hit up a restaurant called Daily Grinds for some delicious breakfast. Before long we were driving up to Waimea canyon. We missed the turn for highway 550 so instead we went up Kokee Road. We didn’t see any of the canyon until we reached the first scenic overlook where we pulled off and walked to the viewing platform. Holy moly it was a beautiful sight! The clouds were making textured contrasts on the red cliffs with green tops. We soaked it up for some time before moving on. We drove past Koke’e “Lodge” and the campground. The campgrounds look nice, which we were excited for since we had two nights reserved there.
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| View from camp this AM |
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| Salt Pond Beach Park |
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| Salt Beach Park |
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| Waimea Canyon |
We continued to the end of the Koke’e road. Our plan was to hike the Alakai Swamp trail to the Kilohana overlook. We started our hike at the Kalalau valley overlook. We were blown away by the view, overlooking the entirety of the Kalalau valley. Amazingly beautiful! We continued on the trail, switching between trail & cool plank boardwalks. We hiked mostly through dense forest filled with endemic birds. We came across an unusual tropical flower with many long narrow yellow flowers with red stamens. They smelled very nice. Eventually we broke out of the forest and walked the boardwalk in marshy open lands. It was definitely a cool and unique area. The trail ends at the Kilohana overlook. It definitely was an amazing view, you could see Kileau lighthouse, Princeville, Hanalei bay, and even Haena beach were we camped the night before! Crazy to be the southwestern-most part of the island and have a complete unobstructed view of the entire north coast!
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| Alakai Swamp Trail |
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| Alakai Swamp trail |
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| Kilohana Overlook |
At the overlook, we ran into a young couple from Boston that was basically on the same itinerary as us. They had just spent the prior night at Pohale beach state park and were telling us how nice it was. We didn’t have any reservations for tonight so we asked them more about. It was a place we were interested in checking out but talking with the couple confirmed it as tonight’s destination. Besides, we were low on gas and groceries, both of which were not available in the high country so we needed to go back to the lowlands anyways. After a quick snack, we headed back to the car. We drove all the way down to Waimea, gassed up, and resupplied at a little grocery store. It wasn’t long before we were driving out to Pohale state park. This park is accessed by dirt and sand roads. Soft sand holes in a few areas made for some sketchy driving, but our all wheel drive subaru impreza did quite well.
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| Alakai Swamp Trail |
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| Alakai Swamp Trail |
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| Pohale Beach State Park |
The beach is huge, 15 miles. No designated camping area, we just found some comfortable flat areas amongst the dunes near one of the outhouses. We enjoyed a simple dinner while watching the amazing sunset over Niahu, the forbidden island. The southern cliffs of the Na Pali coast reflected the pink glow of the sunset. According to ancient Hawaiian beliefs, the spirits of people who recently passed away would paddle a canoe down the Wailua river, into the ocean, around the island, land on this beach, climb to the tops of the cliff above us, and jump, falling into the afterlife. Pretty cool. Although the beach was huge and we didn’t camp near anyone, it was friday night so people were streaming in well after dark. Once again the stars were beyond description.
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| Sunset from Pohale State Beach Park |
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