Pololu Valley

We went hiking in Pololu Valley today. Its about a ten minute drive from Hawi (where we live). Its easy to find because you keep going on the main road until the road ends and youre there!

Here a view from the parking lot at the trail head. You can see there are several other valleys and Im fairly certain that you could hike to all of them from this point. Someday we might just do that but it wasnt today! If Im not mistaken, this is called the Hamakua Coast (its the northern coast of the island for all you map readers).

This is Pololu Beach. It a black sand beach and I swear there was sand under those black rocks! The waves were mean! Look at those sets! Locals dont swim at this beach though because the current is too strong and there are undertows, etc. I guess tourists drown here every once in awhile (I would imagine they have to helicopter someone out if they got injured or died) But its a nice beach to explore or picnic on and the smell...the freshest of the fresh!

We decided to picnic inside the valley on this log. It was a meager picnic of trail mix and water because I didnt feel like hiking down with a three course meal.


Heres some more exploring of the Valley. This water was rather stagnant but added to the natural ambiance of the whole excursion.

And heres a view looking into the valley from half way up the trail. Beautiful.

Ikaika slept through all of this part, upholding an honored tradition in my family of kids snoozing through majestic landscape views of the US.

I did much better hiking up that trail than I did when Mr A and I were hiking up that temple in Cambodia, which means one of two things. Either I am in better shape than I was a few years ago or the hot hot heat of SE Asia seriously inhibits my climbing abilities.

It was really nice but we both agreed that it would have been easier with a backpack for the baby rather than a front pack. Ikaika is getting to the upper limits of what the Baby Bjorn can take weight-wise. Im just glad Mr A was packing him and not me!

Afterwards we got ice cream and Ikaika was VERY interested in eating it. But tough luck - no dairy or sugar for you, dude!

Although I did give him a couple teaspoons of poi when we got home, so Im not a complete tyrant.