After filling our bellies with a delicious meal and resisting the urge to buy weed from the little old lady peddling it, not once, but twice (all me), we made our way to the Napali Coast State Wilderness Park.
We took a scenic route that hugged the ocean, crossing a couple of a low hanging steel bridges. Along the way, we saw colorful, residential homes built high up on stilts and passed signs mapping out a tsunami route. Eventually, the road brought us to a sand bottomed cave that is carved into the side of the mountain, just across the street from the ocean. The close distance of the water to the opening of the cave, made me think that there are definitely times when the sea must flow right in!
I’m not sure what I was expecting when we got to Napali Coast State Wilderness Park, but I obviously hadn’t done my homework. I was hoping to go hiking, but was really only prepared for a short and easy hike. So many of the parks these days have made it easy with a fancy visitor center, paved trails, and lots of other little amenities that make it easy to come straight from the cruise ship in your sandals and walk around for a few hours in comfort.
Napali Coast State Wilderness Park isn’t one of those parks (which I actually like) and the trail I originally had in mind wasn’t going to be an easy hike.
In fact, to do the full hike with the spectacular views of the ocean and a couple of different waterfalls, it would mean getting a permit and camping overnight on the trail. We obviously weren’t going to do that on this trip since we had to be back on the ship by 5pm. So instead, we checked out the enormous waves from the shore, and then headed back towards the other side of the island to visit Opaeka’a Falls and Wailua Falls!
