We woke in the campground early, around 6:30 AM, everything damp from the grassy lawn. We started packing up, setting out our sleeping bags & tent to dry in the sun as we organized our gear for the backpack trip today. With the skies blue, we popped the top off the Jeep and hit the road to Hilo. We made it 20 miles before it was raining on us. We should have known, heading to a city that starts discussing drought conditions if they receive less than 70" of rain in a year! We needed to fill up our gas tank anyways so we pulled over at a gas station, the cheapest gas on the island at $4.23/gallon (everywhere else it's $4.50!)
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| Top is off.... for 20 minutes! |
We arrived in Hilo, a very cute town. It's glory days were during the sugar industry boom. We found Basically Books, a wonderful little store selling lots of Hawaii maps (for all the islands), souvenirs, Hawaiian music, and, of course, books, including guide books. We picked up some hiking maps for the big island & Kauai. We thought it was getting late and we still had to drive to Waipio Valley plus hike 10 miles! We were shocked to find it was only 10:30 AM, plenty of time to grab some food before heading out. We hit up Cafe 100, OMG it was so good!! I got the Kalua Loco Moco: white rice topped with Kalua pork & gravy, finished with a egg on top fried to your specifications. Of course I ordered my egg over-easy... it was sooooo good!! Mat ordered a dish that consisted of white rice, chili, a fried egg, portuguese sausages, fried spam, & hamburger patty. Oh yeah :)
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| Cafe 100 |
We hit the highway going north, stopping at a grocery store in Honokaa. In Waipio, we found Waipio Valley Art, a little art and ice cream shop that will let you park your car overnight for a fee. It was the perfect safe spot since there is no overnight parking allowed at the Waipio Valley overlook parking lot and it was only 0.5 miles from the trailhead. Mat dropped me off at the overlook with our gear, parked the car at the shop, and walked back to join me. We started down the Waipio Valley road by 1:30 PM, giving us a good amount of time to hike the 10 miles. It's a steep road with a grade anywhere between 25-45%.
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| Waipio Valley from the Overlook |
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| Steep road down to the valley floor |
We dropped into the valley, made our way across the beach, and up the steep zigzag trail on the other side. The trail flattened out on top and we meandered in & out of gulches of various sizes. There were all sorts of trees and plants: wonderful pine trees, tropical bushes, ferns, great big grandmother trees. We even ate some macadamia nuts from a macadamia tree, which grows its nuts in clusters along the trunk. At one point on the trail, we came across a small short waterfall that ended in a deep, fairly large pool. Mat dropped his pack and bent down to the pool, I dropped my pack and bent down to check out the pool as Mat stood up and walked back to the packs. Just as I stood up, Mat flew by me and cannon balled into the pool! He had stripped his socks & shoes off so quickly I didn't even realize it! So we stopped a bit for Mat to swim in his wallow.
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| Neat tree at the bottom of Waipio Valley |
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| Climbing up the other side of the valley |
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| Mat's wallow |
We reached the top of Waimeo Valley at 6:00 PM, giving us one hour to get to the valley floor and set up camp before dark. The valley was amazing: smaller than the Waipio in terms of size of the valley floor (not deepness) but more waterfalls dropping in. It was hard to determine where to look: the beautiful beach or the beautiful valley in the opposite direction! We dropped down to the floor but had one last river crossing before the campground on the other side. It was deep, too. Our options were to cross where it was fast, narrow, and deep next to the ocean where the waves were crashing or to cross a bit inland where it was wide and deep but slow with a rope to hang onto as you swam across. It was getting dark so we chose the latter, rinsing off the day's sweat as a bonus. We set up camp in the surrounding darkness at our designated campsite #1, the first site next to the river. It started to rain fairly hard but luckily our campsite was quite sheltered and we were able to get our tent up without getting too wet. The brief storm wore itself out within 10 minutes so we ate dinner in the dark outside. Definitely ready for bed.
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| About to drop into the Waimeo valley |
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| Waterfalls in the Waimio valley |
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| Using the rope to cross the river to camp |
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