On Friday, Tom and I had plans to hike the Waipi’o Valley. We intended to forge the river and hike up the far side and so packed lunch, plenty of water, and set out for our adventure. 
When we arrived, it was gloomy but not raining, so we hiked down the mile long 25% grade (that’s reeeealy steep) road taking it at a snail’s pace.
This is from the bottom once we got down.
Once at the bottom we found the valley as beautiful as before but rain soaked and very muddy due to an inordinate amount of rain.
That rainfall also contributed to the rain swelled and rapidly flowing river that we had planned to forge. After several tentative attempts, we gave up and decided to hike the side of the valley we were on.
There are a surprising number of homes in the valley and we walked along the gravel road that followed the river getting a glimpse of valley life. 
After about a mile and a half of slogging along the muddy road, I took the wrong way around a puddle and was ankle deep in mud. That’s when I declared that I’d had enough of mud hiking and we headed back.
Just after we started back, it began to rain in earnest – Wow! Are we having fun or what? We took shelter under a very large tree and sat on the roots to wait for the worst of the rain to abate, and as we sat there a small band (5) of wild horses that were on the road decided to check us out. They seemed friendly enough but very curious 
so we discussed the situation with them while it rained. After a bit, a local in a jeep came by and stopped to let the horses move. One horse had different ideas and sauntered up to the front of her car and just stood there looking in through the front window – very funny.
The girl finally got out and shooed him away, and then drove on – an amusing scene as we waited.
After a bit we decided to haul out the ponchos and keep going because the rain wasn’t letting up. We had almost made it back to the base of the hill when another local that was going our way, stopped and offered us a ride to the top. We debated for about 2 seconds before thanking him profusely and crawling in his jeep.
On the way home we stopped at a couple of other parks where it wasn’t raining. At the first, Kalopa State Park, we took a short hike through a pretty dense and very tall forest. It was quiet, peaceful and lovely. 
The last stop of the day was at Kolekole Beach Park
which sits beneath a very tall highway bridge. 
It was a pretty little park with a river and beautiful waterfalls, 
and rainbows. A lovely ending to the day.
with winding pathways 
that lead down into a rather steep valley 
and wind around to reveal hundreds of varieties of
,
,
,
,
,
!!!!
,
a pink pineapple.
CharliExplores 
