Honeymooners: Day 6, 7 & 8

Read about day 1, days 2 & 3, and days 4 & 5. 
Click any picture to enlarge it.

FINALLY finishing our honeymoon series!  It shouldn't have taken this long to finish, sorry!


Day 6:

Today we conquered part of the Na Pali Coast.  It is one of the most beautiful trails in the entire world.  It is also, according to Backpacker Magazine, one of America's top 10 most dangerous hikes.  The hike itself, the Kalalau trail, is 11 miles one way to a beach that you can only get to by foot or boat.  We didn't hike the whole thing because that would require backpacking (maybe someday!).  Instead, we hiked 2 miles in to a very nice beach (Hanakapi'ai) and then 2 miles inland to a very famous waterfall (Hanakapi'ai Falls).
 

 We left Haena Beach for Hanakapi'ai.  It wasn't too intense of a hike (just some slippery rocks at the beginning), but just look at what we found at the beach....

Isn't this the scariest sign you've ever seen?!  We even saw people swimming in the water...

Anyways, we then left the beach and hiked inland to go to Hanakapi'ai Falls.  This waterfall is made famous from Jurassic Park!  If you've seen it, then you know that when they first land on Jurassic Park they fly down a waterfall with the helicopter.  Well, that scene is THIS waterfall!  SO COOL!

The trailhead marker said that this hike was only 2 miles one way, but it definitely felt a LOT longer than that.  It involved a lot of mud.. a lot.. and climbing over rocks, fording rivers and getting very dirty.  But, it was a beautiful hike into the jungle.

Complete with bamboo!

After a long, long, 2 miles we made it.  It was amazing!  300 ft of just water falling.  

 

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Day 7:

We had the choice of staying 7 or 8 days before our return flight, so we chose to stay 8, duh!  But, we couldn't get condo that long so we decided that we would just camp out one night.  Plus, we didn't want to spend extra on an overpriced hotel.

We chose to campout on the south/southwestern side of the island and explore that area.

Kauai is seriously night and day on different parts of the island.  Northern/eastern is all wet, beachy, and foresty, while the southern end has a huge dry canyon.

Waimea Canyon is beautiful. 

We wandered around the trails and just soaked in the beauty of the island.

Later we went to explore the city of Waimea.   
And that's all I've got to say about that...

Just kidding.  There really wasn't much in Waimea.  They had a few little shops (same merchandise as most of the other places) and some very nice... sculptures.  

Just a little weird, right?!

Anyways, after being creeped out, we went to the "park" that we were camping at.  Unfortunately I don't have any pictures of the area that we stayed at, but it was a fenced-in baseball field with an eating area and beach nearby.  Not really the most romantic spot, but hey, we were camping in Hawaii!


We found out when we got there that there was a homeless camp right next to the park and you had to set up your tent in the baseball field and park by the beach.  I felt a little weird leaving all of our stuff in the car, which was parked pretty far away from our tent, so we actually ended up sleeping in our car.  Thank you fold-down seats and not so awful leg room.

We only woke up with little leg cramps and little sleep, but hey, we had a long flight ahead of us, so we were going to get our sleep in somehow.


We took an uneventful plane ride home (THANK YOU for nothing crazy happening) and thus concludes our honeymoon.

Thanks for tagging along :)