Nanakuli Valley – December 28, 2012

Raquel has a friend who is part owner of the Nanakuli Ranch. Earlier in the week, she contacted her friend to see if we could hike the trails back there. This looked like a good opportunity for us to hike in Nanakuli Valley, a valley which not too many people explore.

We met at Kapolei Rec. Center at 8 am, and then drove to the Nanakuli Ranch. There were a total of 19 people on this hike, 7 adults and 12 kids. We met the owner, she was really nice. From the parking area, was an obvious jeep road. Along the road, we saw a goat skull. The kids were scared at first, but once they realized that the skull wouldn’t attack them, they became enamored with the skull. The jeep road split and we took a wrong turn and ended up near someone’s backyard, so we backtracked and took the other fork.

The jeep road starts to climb up a ridge. All of a sudden, there was a herd of cows. At least 30 cows on the trail right in front of us. We all froze, I feared for the kids. The cows were startled as they stared at us. Most of the cows continued on and only two cows were left, but they did not want to move off the trail. Angie, who used to live in Texas and has 60 cows of her own on a family farm, went up to both of the cows and moved one along off the trail. The other cow she said couldn’t figure out how to get around the fence. With that problem solved, we continued on.

We hiked until we caught up with the herd of cows again. They turned and looked at us. But Angie gave a command, and off they went on the trail. We hiked a little further until a rest stop. We decided that this would be our terminus. The trail appeared to go further up the mountain. I took out some spam musubi’s which I made earlier. The kids love spam musubi’s.

We headed back to our cars and went to McDonald’s to eat a snack. At McDonald’s, Robin asked if we wanted to go to her family's farm in Maile. That would be great I said! Off we went to Maile. The farm had an aquaponics system that raised tilapia and grew plants. Some kids were interested, but they were more preoccupied with the man made swing set up.

It was late afternoon already. I was tired, but the waves were pounding the Westside. I drove to Makaha Beach so we could view the large surf. I’d say the surf was at least 6-10 feet. Not too big, but it looked good from the shore.