m*******a
发帖数: 363 | 1 Third day on Kauai. Kauai is the oldest island of six islands of state
Hawaii. Thus it has the most versatile vegetation, The lush forest, wild
flowers and limitless greenness. From our hiking trails we can see the
grayish shadow of Ni'ihao Island, a privately owned one, setting in the mist
about 17 miles away.
Today we are going to hike the Nu’alolo-Awa’awapuhi Trail，a total of 11
miles including 1 mile on the road. elevation gain 2000 ft. rated as
difficult. Again, i planned this for a 7 hour hike. turned out we started at
9:00 am and back at 17:00. not too bad , eh? :) .
after a luxury breakfast (to me, i usually dont have breakfast), with all
sorts of soybean milk, bread, cream and soup. we got to the trailhead, only
2 mins walk from our campsite.
The trail was a little slippery from last night's rain. but covered with
wild guavas. from red to yellow, from small to big ones. first we picked
them up off the ground, with dirt, but taste delicious. then LY said hey, we
can pick them directly from the trees. there they are, all ripe already. 我
们就这样吃着果子，对着诗，快乐的走在乡间小路上 ：）。XH and DH are very good
at chinese poems. oh. there are so many of them that they were reciting
back and forth that i had never heard of before.
about 0.5 or 0.8 mile in, XH asked me where the first lookout is, from the
map in the museum that i remembered, there is no one until about 2 mil. so
she turned back. the rest 3 of us kept going.
compared to yesterday's trail, this one is relatively easier. no scary drops
(so far), no mysterious mist and with plenty of wild organic fruits :).
we marched on, cheerfully. worried about our schedule, we marched on faster.
soon, there is the lookout, need to go sideways for another 0.8 mil one way.
Hesitated for a second, we went to see the lookout. oh. what a view! The
other "wing" of the mountain is right in front of our eyes, so close i felt
i could almost touch it. it is parallelled to the one we are standing at.
so parallel to each other , leaving a narrow bright livid green valley
beneath our feet. we watched the long tail white bird flying below in the
valley. Wind picked up. a little rain came. tried of getting the big camera
out, we stood there, singing"你存在，我深深的脑海里“
not far, we heard voices down the trail. A group of people came up. They are
on a guided hike organized by REI. we all had quick lunch. and we decided
to "follow" the REI group to keep a decent pace. So that we can get off the
trail by sunset 6:50 pm.
there are narrow sections of the trail, with the wind, i felt a little dizzy
and trail looks so challenging to me. LY had to pull one end of my hiking
pole with me holding tight on the other end, stepping forward slowly, for me
. i wonder, if i ever went there by myself, could i be crawling then.
Kauai has no predators, no bears, no snakes, no wolves. So on our trail, we
didnot see any other live beings besides birds, insects and human. but we
encountered a dead goat. Until then we knew oh, there are goats on Kauai.
the goat has been dead for a while. The stench was distinctive even 100 ft
away. Poor goat, however, that was my only chance to get to see a wild goat
that close.
i am happy this trail is a loop :) no repeating sections!
after the last mile on road, we are back to campsite in one piece. where XH
is resting in the shelter with other people. she greeted us like heros :).
there is a big group of locals celebrating someone's birthday. they have
like 20 ppl. but they are cleaning up. Just when we were about to cook our
dinner with our camp stove , a man carried a huge tray of cooked chicken
with onions came over to us, said those are leftovers and if we dont mind,
those are for us. wow what a treat! chicken followed by a bag of grapes,
watermelons, a big mango. and a box of juices.
dont know when , they left. i looked over, everything looked like nothing
happened there. they have cleaned everything up, put all benches, tables
back. no trash. like no one was here before.
they cleaned up 3 huge bags of trash, and loaded them up in their truck,
took off.
they left without leaving any piece of trash behind just the food for us. I
felt moved.
During my stay in Kauai, it became clear to me that local people care about
the Paradise they are living in, and they are working hard to keep it that
way. Paradise.
no plastic bag provided no where. not in grocery stores, not in restaurants.
which Paradise is supposed to be. | h********e
发帖数: 1130 | 2 nice blog, is the trail going all the way to the beach? | m*******a
发帖数: 363 | 3 This particular trail, no. it was in Waimea Caynon.
there was another Kalalau trail, that one goes all the way down to the beach.
i am still wokring on that blog . :) |
|
