James and Paul Do Hawaii: Part 5: Maonoa Falls

Friday 11th November

We woke earlyish, and with sore heads from the late night partying at Tsunamis. We ate breakfast and then headed to Manoa Valley. It actually took us over an hour to walk from the university (where the bus dropped us) to the foot of the trail that leads up to Manoa Falls, and it rained most of the way, especially as we got further into the valley. However the air was hot as were we from walking hard so the rain made little bother to us, though we were soaked to the skin in no time.

As we started the trail I was absolutely knocked backwards by the sheer size, beauty and freshness of the rainforest. You could hear a river rushing in a deep gorge below and there were giant leaves of every shape. You could smell it, earthy and lush and green. I felt like I was in South America, or had stepped into the pages one of the many picture books I have fantasized over since my childhood. This was real rainforest. It was incredible and I was overjoyed, smiling and gasping all the way up the trail and back, slipping and scrambling over the rocks and winding tree roots, following the stream to the top.

Totally unexpected, the rainforest suddenly became bamboo forest. Exactly like out of the films Hero, House of Flying daggers and all those. It was eerie and utterly magic.

Naomi on the pathway (view from within the bamboo forest)

This tree was HUGE and interesting. Unfortunately the picture does no justice to what we saw and how we felt when we were there.

An interesting red bud on a plant, with big ants crawling over it.

The waterfall. Unfortunately fenced off since a rockslide a couple of years ago so we were unable to swim in the pool. We sat for a while eating our sandwiches by the fall, and would have stepped under the barrier to swim for a bit, only suddenly many visitors appeared to have caught up with us, including some unbelievable obnoxious and loud mouthed American teenagers so we raced off back dwon the trail to get away from them.