Katie takes on Kaena Point!

Kaena Point...  The view at the point towards the Waianae coast.

In honor of Kate's visit to Oahu for spring break, I thought that we needed to plan some outings, or else we'd all end up just watching the news (election year) and playing video games all day long... But the weather was not so great.  It was a bit on the chilly side for most ocean-activities, so we decided to take advantage of cooler temps to hike out to Kaena Point Nature Reserve.

I don't know why it took so long for me to plan a trip out to this place.  I was scared away by the Yelp reviews noting how there is no shade (there isn't) and how it's a long, boring walk to the reserve (kinda is).  With cooler temps (in the low 70s), ocean breezes (which blew my hat off my head a few times), and basically no rain, conditions were pretty decent for the hike.  Those of us who wore sunblock and are used to the Hawaii sun didn't get burned.  Kate, sporting a vampire-like complexion after a long winter near the Canadian border, did get a little sunburn in spite of sunblock.  We'll just call it her spring break chemical peel-- and she didn't even have to pay for it!

The trail wasn't difficult to find, even though one of the two highways to the North Shore from Mililani was closed down for repairs.  This detour took a bit of extra time, but we soldiered on. Eventually we got to the trailhead, where the wind was whipping everything around and the waves were crashing.  We started walking along the 4WD only road (I would even hesitate to take a 4WD truck on this "road", it was in such bad shape).  There are many roadways off of the main road leading to the shore, where we saw several fishermen trying their luck.  The ground is barren, rocky, and volcanic looking.  There were a few tidepools, but no fish swimming in the ones we explored. There were some crabs, though.

Winding, rocky trail...

Still dusty!  Still rocky!

Walking towards Kaena Point, around the end of the Waianae Mountain Ridge.

Are we there yet?

Rough, rocky shoreline. 

Checking out a tidepool... 

This was the most typical vegetation we saw on the hike (except for dried grass).

Having concluded that there really was not a ton of stuff to look at along the shoreline, we mostly just slogged on towards the reserve.  It took a while to get there, including several "Are we there yet?" conversations, followed by games of "I'm thinking of an animal..." and all the other various iterations of the How To Keep Young Kids Happy on a Boring Hike game.  I believe the trail to the Nature Reserve is around 2.5 miles, and with the deep ruts in the road, it took about an hour to get there.

Time to Get Educated!

Once there, we entered through the gate (brushing off our shoes on the little shoe-brusher-offer devices meant to keep us from tracking in Dangerous Stuff...  Nevermind the wind would surely blow in far more than could be carried by shoes...).  The trail was sandy here, versus the packed dirt or volcanic rock of the rest of the trail.  There were educational signs describing the birds that were nesting, as well as other wildlife to look for.  We saw large seabirds gliding, landing every now and then by a group of nesting seabirds.  They were well off the path, and being Obedient Stewards of Nature, we didn't approach to try to see eggs.

Ahhh!  We made it to the Nature Reserve!

The Seabirds kept close to the nesting grounds.

They flew so low to the ground! 

Nesting birds...

And a sentry, keeping an eye on the nests.

Not an endangered bird, these little red-caps (cardinals) are everywhere and are quite fun to watch (if you like to watch birds).

We kept on walking through the reserve, until reaching Kaena Point.  Here, I could see down the Waianae coast (on the Leeward side of the island), as well as look back along the North Shore coast. Kaena Point is very rocky;  it's definitely not a swimming beach.  Steven and Luke felt the need to climb up on the rocks, just to be daring.  

Kaena Point

Waianae in the background.

A boy and his cell phone...

Soaking up the sun!

The typical shoreline approaching Kaena Point from the North Shore. 

Past the point, this is the view towards Waianae. 

On the way back towards the North Shore from Kaena Point.

The waves were really crashing, but there were little pools of calmer water here and there in between rocky shorebreaks.  There were a couple of monk seals playing in one of these calm pools.  One of the goals of our trip to the reserve was to spot some of these seals in the wild, so we were totally stoked.

In the middle of the pool-- a monk seal who was playing with another monk seal.  All good splashy fun, but hard to photograph!

While I was watching these seals play, some marine biologists arrived and asked us all to stand back as they vaccinated a monk seal that was sunnning on the rocks.  She crept up to him, and jabbed him with a needle attached to the end of the pole.  He didn't seem to like it, but I don't think that seals can move quickly enough on the rocks to evade vaccinations.  He just sort of yelled at her, and then kept a look out for future indignities.  We were told that we were very lucky to witness this event-- apparently this is a pilot program to test the efficacy of vaccinating monk seals in the wild.  Your Tax Dollars At Work...

Anyway, seeing the monk seals in the wild, with only a bit of Human Interference, meant "Mission Accomplished" for me...  So, we hiked back along the trail (which seemed much farther on the way back), enjoying a riveting game of "Let's Make a Story" after a few rounds of "Are We There Yet?"

As we left the reserve, we saw a seabird fly right over us... 

By this point, traffic in the North Shore was particularly gnarly, seeing as there was a relatively high surf, a road closure, and some utility line work.  We went to eat pie and plate lunch at Ted's Bakery, then fought the traffic all the way back home.  Overall, a very successful outing!