Saturday we were wondering what we wanted to do for the day.
On the one hand, we need to do laundry, clean house and possibly pull some weeds.
The car could use a good vacuuming . . .
Or there's the beach!
Well? What would you choose?
That's what I thought, the beach it was!
I had a friend post on Facebook that she would be at La Perouse Bay. Even though I didn't know the name of this place, it was a spot I had been wanting to check out.
On the south side of Maui, if you head East, you will pass Kihei, Wailea and Makena. You'll pass Big Beach, and keep going . . . drive until you literally cannot drive any further. Drive until you reach a big field of rocks, otherwise known as a lava flow. It's here that you will find a small parking lot. Careful not to puncture a tire!
We saw our friend's car in the parking lot. We thought we might be in luck. Hopefully we could find her. The plan was to find a small little hidden beach to relax and possibly get a little snorkeling in.
From the parking lot it's kind of difficult to even see that there is a trail that leads anywhere. In fact, the first few times we drove out there, we didn't know there was a trail. We just thought it was a bunch of lava rocks as far as the eye could see in that direction.
But recently, we went out there with some visitors and noticed the trail. We followed for a short ways, but our visitors weren't up for a good hike. So we didn't go very far.
That's why we decided to check it out this time around. We knew there was more to see.
So . . . in anticipation of actually finding a beach down this trail, we each had our beach towels, Scott had the one set of snorkel gear he strapped to his back. Camille was carrying her towel and a big bottle of water. And I was the lucky one that got to carry the beach bag with my towel, big bottle of water and a few snacks, bottles of sunscreen, sand, etc.
The three of us, decked out with our local style slippahs (flip-flops for you main landers) headed out. My slippahs were kinda thin compared to theirs. At the very beginning of our hike I had stepped on a pointed rock and bruised my foot pretty good. In my head I'm thinking "I hope it's not a small fracture" that's how much it hurt at first. But I could still walk on it.
Before long we came to the point where we had been to previously. There is a nice little cave carved out by the waves where the water likes to splash up when the waves crash. Unfortunately, we had forgotten our actual camera, so the very few pictures in this post were taken with my phone. Not the best quality.
Shortly after that is an area where you can actually get into the water to snorkel, but it's still rocky. We didn't see our friend anywhere so we kept walking.
Scott had looked online (Google Earth or something) and had thought there was a pretty big beach past the second big outcropping of lava. So I got it into my head that there would be this beautiful sandy beach hidden just around the next bend.
We hiked through some nice shade of Keawe trees where we saw
some black goats roaming around.
I know, weird right? (see bottom photo below)
On the one hand, we need to do laundry, clean house and possibly pull some weeds.
The car could use a good vacuuming . . .
Or there's the beach!
Well? What would you choose?
That's what I thought, the beach it was!
I had a friend post on Facebook that she would be at La Perouse Bay. Even though I didn't know the name of this place, it was a spot I had been wanting to check out.
On the south side of Maui, if you head East, you will pass Kihei, Wailea and Makena. You'll pass Big Beach, and keep going . . . drive until you literally cannot drive any further. Drive until you reach a big field of rocks, otherwise known as a lava flow. It's here that you will find a small parking lot. Careful not to puncture a tire!
We saw our friend's car in the parking lot. We thought we might be in luck. Hopefully we could find her. The plan was to find a small little hidden beach to relax and possibly get a little snorkeling in.
From the parking lot it's kind of difficult to even see that there is a trail that leads anywhere. In fact, the first few times we drove out there, we didn't know there was a trail. We just thought it was a bunch of lava rocks as far as the eye could see in that direction.
But recently, we went out there with some visitors and noticed the trail. We followed for a short ways, but our visitors weren't up for a good hike. So we didn't go very far.
That's why we decided to check it out this time around. We knew there was more to see.
So . . . in anticipation of actually finding a beach down this trail, we each had our beach towels, Scott had the one set of snorkel gear he strapped to his back. Camille was carrying her towel and a big bottle of water. And I was the lucky one that got to carry the beach bag with my towel, big bottle of water and a few snacks, bottles of sunscreen, sand, etc.
The three of us, decked out with our local style slippahs (flip-flops for you main landers) headed out. My slippahs were kinda thin compared to theirs. At the very beginning of our hike I had stepped on a pointed rock and bruised my foot pretty good. In my head I'm thinking "I hope it's not a small fracture" that's how much it hurt at first. But I could still walk on it.
Before long we came to the point where we had been to previously. There is a nice little cave carved out by the waves where the water likes to splash up when the waves crash. Unfortunately, we had forgotten our actual camera, so the very few pictures in this post were taken with my phone. Not the best quality.
Shortly after that is an area where you can actually get into the water to snorkel, but it's still rocky. We didn't see our friend anywhere so we kept walking.
Scott had looked online (Google Earth or something) and had thought there was a pretty big beach past the second big outcropping of lava. So I got it into my head that there would be this beautiful sandy beach hidden just around the next bend.
We hiked through some nice shade of Keawe trees where we saw
some black goats roaming around.
I know, weird right? (see bottom photo below)
We eventually passed the nice shade trees and was left with just rocks. (see above photo!) We actually passed a few locals that had driven there trucks out here. You would definitely need to have a high clearance and probably 4-wheel drive to make it on this trail/road.
The only thing I could think of these locals was what they must be thinking of these stupid "haoles" trying to hike this trail in "slippahs"! In fact one of them (whom we passed at least 3 times because he stopped and chatted with the other locals that had driven 2 or 3 times), once he finally stopped and parked his truck said, "You need tennis shoes, these rocks are gnarly!"
I just agreed and kept on going.
I hate looking like a dumb tourist, but I really fit the bill this time around!
I bet they had a good chuckle about me later!
By now my feet are seriously bruised and sore from having too little cushion and support to traverse such harsh conditions. Not to mention, I'm really tired of carrying this beach bag. I was lagging behind because I had to be very careful where I stepped. Just look at this picture below of my "hiking shoes"! You can get an idea of the harsh rocks we were walking on for what I think is close to 3 miles!
We actually hiked all the way to the light beacon at the end of the trail (well Scott and Camille went all the way, I stayed back about a hundred yards because my feet were hurting so much). Now we had to hike ALL THE WAY BACK! OI!Thankfully, the hike back didn't seem as long. Once we got back to the only sandy entrance to the water, gladly stripped down to our swimming suits and got in.
This little spot of beach was about as big as a small bedroom. We couldn't go too far in the water because of more rocks and coral in the way. Not to mention the water had become rough and there was quite an undertow because of the way the rocks were.
We were happy to at least get wet up to our waste. It felt really good on the feet!
Scott played a little in the waves, but like I said, not much room to do anything exciting.
By this time it had been at least an hour of walking on extreme rocky roughness in inadequate shoes and we were very hungry for lunch!
We headed back to the car and out to lunch. We drove straight to Cheeseburger Island Style!
(nom, nom,nom,nom)
Can you see the goat in the picture above, right next to the water? We saw quite a few goats wandering around. They were all black goats.We never did find our friend. She said they had left around 11 am. She got in some good snorkeling. We didn't!
Even though I thoroughly bruised my feet, was totally embarrassed at what the locals were thinking of us, and didn't really get the relaxing beach time I was hoping for nor any snorkeling, I'm still very happy we did this hike. We had a good time.
Serious nap time was needed when we got home!
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