February 5, 2025

I hope that this post doesn’t get flagged for its title, but the hike that Nick planned for us today tested every thing in my body.  Nick had done a lot of research of activists for this trip and I just booked what needed to be reserved.  For this hike, you needed to reserve a parking spot at a lot about 30 minutes away and take a bus to the drop off point.  Our bus was scheduled for 9 am departure and the hotel was about 50 minutes away, so we departed the hotel around 7:30 am, stopped at a nearby coffee shop, which was adorable, I loved the minimalist look of it.  We grabbed coffees and pastries and set off on our way.  We arrived to the lot about 20 minutes early, but it allowed us time to get checked in and repack our bags.  Again, not knowing anything about this hike at all, Nick advised that there were two beaches, as well as a waterfall with a “pool” at the end, so we grabbed our swimsuits and towels.

Our bus shortly arrived and we hopped on and made our way through the winding roads alongside the coast to the parking lot where we met Sherman, who would give us an intro before we took off on our big adventure.  It was about a .50 mile walk to the first beach and then from there a 2.0 mile hike to the next beach, a beach that is not meant for the relaxing, it was all giant rocks and huge waves.  According to Sherman, this is where the most deaths occur on any beach in Hawaii, and we could see how.  I don’t know why anyone would attempt to enter the waters.  Although quite stunning, not anywhere where I would want to test the waters.  The hike was definitely strenuous to this part, but the views were some of the most amazing that I have ever witnessed, it felt like we were in a movie set.  I can certainly see why they film many movies/shows here.  

We sat at the second “beach” for a few, catching our breathe before we continued on our hike, this not as strenuous, but definitely needed to have agility, we hiked through a bamboo forest, climbed over boulders, and I did my best not to look down in certain parts of the hike.  As Nick put it, it was the most technically difficult hike that we had ever done, we had to cross the same river 5 times to get to our final destination, which was a beautiful 300 foot waterfall.  

We had planned ahead by bringing our suites, but just the mist coming off the waterfall was chilly, so there was no way I was getting in that water.  There were a few brave, young, 20 something’s that were brave enough, the same ones that were running past us on our way back.

We sat at the falls for a while just taking in the sites, Nick had a moment where he spread his grandma and mom’s ashes.  I never knew this, but his grandma had always dreamed of coming to Hawai’i so only fitting that we were able to get some of her ashes and her final resting place is at the beautiful falls, granted her grandson tried to kill me getting there, but I think that she would be happy with her final destination.

We slowly, or as I now proclaimed, cautiously slowly made our way back.  After the trail had been traveled it sure did get more slippery.  The guidance was that if it were raining not to attempt that hike, and I even commented on the way in that there would be no way to do that, well we got to experience why.  With about 1.5 miles left in our hike it started to rain, and it sure did make those rocks and pathways slippery.  We had figured that we would be back about 4 pm to catch the shuttle, but it took us much longer than that to navigate the path.  I was very proud though that neither one of us fell, and we came back still married.  It was a test of our flexibility, muscle strength, mental strength and our marriage.

We thankfully arrived back to the shuttle stop, to the shuttle sitting there, with two seats left on it.  Thank goodness as I needed to be on that bus.  Once we got back to the car the parking lot that we entered full was now pretty empty.  The bus driver told us that once the rain started the first beach cleared about it and it was about a 2 hour wait for a shuttle back. I’d say that we had perfect timing!

Exhausted and disgusting, we made our way to a brewery on the way back to our hotel, Nepali Brewing, we shared the fish and chips and Mac n cheese with local smoked meats and pretzel bites with beer cheese.  Needless to say, I think at this point anything would have tasted good, as we did not plan well for our hike, we had pastries and coffee before we left, but that was it.  Oh, I was so jealous of all the people having snacks at the waterfall.  I guess next time I should have researched and planned better.

Although the hike testing my entire being, it was one of the most beautiful experiences that we have ever had!