Sat, April 23 - Wailua & north

It's Monday mornng, low clouds and 70s. We're thinking after a long day of driving Sunday, we'll take a walk (5 miles) into Kona today and take the trolley back, then have an afternoon of reading, poolside. So, we're not in any hurry this morning so I'll catch up on two days of adventures.
Saturday, we referred to our hiking guidebook (which we think was written by a wimp, but oh well) and drove north past where we drove the day before up over the top of the north side to Wailua, which is a cowboy town but we didn't see any cowboys. Then on to Waipia Bay. I'll have to double check the book on spelling, but that's close. The drive looks a lot like northern California and the temperature went from 80+ alog the coast down to 60ish up in the mountains. I'm starting to get my volcanoes straight so I think I can say that we saw Mauna Loa (the one with the observatories, but maybe that's Mauna Kea - again. need the guidebook!) We were going for a hike that makes Snake Hill or Pisgah (for Calif or OR friends) look like the flats. We got an early start as usual, so when we got to the "trail" head we were only the second or third car. We parked, right next to a friendly goat eating "weeds" and booted up.
If you have a 4WD or you want to pay $55 round-trip, you can drive down. No on both counts for us, so we started the zig zag trek down a one-lane road from the cliffs down into a valley that looked alot like the Mai Chau Valley in VietNam. People apparently actually live down here with no electricity or cell phones and tend taro fields and... who knows what else. Lots of birds, which sometimes you can actually see, but most of the time just hear. I was glad that the road was for the most part dry because it was slick in spots. If Biggest Loser or the Wellness Program at work want a good quad workout, I'd recommend this one. Yipes. Once at the bottom, the "trail" (more a rutted road and I mean RUTS) leads to a grove of (I'm guessing) iron wood trees. The Hawaaian royalty loved this spot and had homes here even if they lived back at Kona. The area is also a burial ground and signs mark it "No Camping". A river/stream cuts through the valley with high cliffs/hills on each side. Legend is that a giant warrior wanted to show how powerful he was, so he couged the valley out with a stick. Looking north (hmm. might have been east at that point) the mountain looked like Neah Kah Nie.
The guide book says people here aren't very friendly, but we didn't get that feel. It did appear to be more locals than tourists. The van with the $55 round-trip people DID look like tourists who never would have made it down and back on their own steam.
We took in the beautiful valley, beach, river and watched the families get their little set-ups for the day and then headed back up. Lunch was in the car and that's always a good incentive.
The hike back up was mostly shady, breezy and warm, but not blistering hot. I'll go back and add distances and elevatios here.
We decided to take pictures on the way up -- my strategy for getting my breath and hiked switchback to switchback and pole to pole. If anyone on the way down, chuckled a little, we could say "Just wait"
Back at the top we used the Garmin to find the nearest park and it didn't fail us. We found a city with a softball fie.d and picnic bench and enjoyed our wraps with ham and cheese.
To get the most of our drive since we weren't going to come back this way, next stop was a state nature reserve which had a short hike through rainforest. (.7) Taking that hike gave a good feel for what the rainforest was like away from manicured paths. We recognized sword fern (or what looked like sword fern). Everything else looked like something NW but not quite - bracken fern type, maidenhair fern-like plus HUGE ferns with fiddleheads the size of saucers. I took a lot of pictures, but I'm not sure the scale is going to be obvious.
After the preserve, we drove back the way we came (not much choice) and through a little rain. Janice H. (aka Janice Who Cuts My Hair) recommended a cafe in Wailua for its excellent coconut pie, so we found it (thanks, Garmin and guidebook) to find Huli Sue's. They have one kind of pie per day and our luck it was, of course, banana cream, so as a non-banana person, I saved a bunch of calories there.
Back at the condo, we cooked up burgers, salad and baked beans for dinner and started the plan for Sunday -- the Volcano!