There were sooooo many unbelievable sunsets that I couldn’t get them all in. Many of you have commented on the ones I have posted, so this post is all about  – you guessed it – the sunsets.

  

Today we sail into the sunset on the next part of our journey. Aloha, Hawaii.

Well that is an intriguing title or not, but let me explain. As Tom will vociferously tell you, I take pictures everywhere I go. Some of them just don’t fit into a walk/hike/climb post, but are worth sharing – at least I think they are. So this post is dedicated to them.

The first section I’m calling my Dr. Seuss Collection because that’s what I thought of when I took these pictures. They’re kind of funny and quirky like objects from a Seuss book.

Okay, moving right along. These are just random pictures that I thought you would enjoy because I do.

As always, I have to include pictures of the local flowers that are everywhere:

 

Each time I am in Hawaii I am struck by the wonder, power and the grandeur in and around these small islands. Tom kids me about constantly photographing everything I see, but I find such amazing, breathtaking beauty in nature that have a need to capture and hold on to it through my camera.

   

 

Okay, I know it’s a long weird title but you’ll understand it soon.

Yesterday’s hike was to Maunawili Falls. We had attempted it a couple of days ago and decided that we were not properly attired so we abandoned the endeavor and went out to eat instead. The reason we gave it up was because Tom was in flip-flops and I had on tennis shoes that I didn’t want ruined.

Anyway, we returned with reef shoes, bug spray, and determination to go the distance. The trail, as many of them do, started out pretty easy. I think that it’s to lure you in and then wham! you’re in too deep to back out. This trail is through a rainforest  and follows a small babbling brook to the falls.

The scenery is lovely but the trail – not so much.

Now you understand the reef shoes. They had pretty good tread but it was still slow, tough going. It took at least 45min. to get through the worst of the mud

and then we hit the stairs.

But we made it down and walked along the creek to the falls. 

  The worst part about the stairs was that once we got down, we had to turn around and climb back up.

 We did make it,  sat caught our breath and admired the scenery.

When we were breathing normally again, we hit the connecting trail toward the top of the mountain. Each part of the trail had it’s own obstacles – root covered trails and fern forests were the ones for this leg of the hike.

The fern forest was pretty but hiking through it was not fun. The ferns had taken over the trail, so you needed a machete to hack your way along. Unfortunately, we neglected to include one in our careful preparations, so we used our bodies and plowed through – not so great on bare arms and legs.

Despite the scratches we made it to the top where we snacked on granola bars and viewed the fruits of our labor.

The rain didn’t last long – just enough to make it more wet and slippery. So we again charged through the fern forest, stumbled over roots, slithered through mud and made it back – muddy, battered and bloody – to the beginning of the trail. Well, the battered and bloody is a bit extreme. We both had some scratches and were definitely muddy but not really battered. We were hungry, however, so we headed to a nearby park for – you guessed it – our hiking fare of Aloha burgers!

Okay, so I’ve added a new category to our activities and that is the climb.

Today we tackled a climb. I have no doubt that true climbers would sneer and scoff at calling what we did a climb and rightly so. However, for us it was a climb and a challenge.

In all it only took us about an hour, but still, parts of it were pretty scary.

 

But the views from the top were very cool, and it was good exercise.

The hike home had some pretty views too.