Wailua River Kayak

Wailua River Kayak and hike to Uluwehi Falls

16 years ago Michelle and I did this kayaking adventure up the Wailua river to a Secret Waterfall. Michelle always gives me a hard time about it as she said I never did any paddling and just sat back and did nothing. That is not entirely true, I think I just needed a break or something.

This time we would take the kids on the adventure up the Wailua river. Jared was scared and got nervous saying, "how dangerous is it?". We assured him that it would be okay.

Apparently back then it was a free for all and companies were letting a lot of people go into the river. This led to problems. Now days, people cannot kayak the river on Sundays and companies are limited to the amount of canoes they can rent out per day. Companies suggest that you do a guided tour which is 3x the price of the rental.

Anyway, we weren't going to do that shit. Nobody is going to guide us anywhere, we were going to do it on our own.

Loading the gear up on the car was pretty easy. We drove up the road and went to the launching dock to launch. Going up the stream would be Jared and I in one kayak and Michelle and Malia in the other. Going up stream was pretty easy. I'd say it took us under 45 minutes. I tried to take video this time. Erik let me borrow is ion video camera which is a pretty neat video camera. We took what I believe was the north fork, well doesn't matter we just followed all the tourist. We docked at the trailhead of secret hike. The Hawaiian name is Uluwehi falls. There were at least 50 kayaks if not more docked. We had a hard time finding parking.

Michelle tied up the kayaks and I head a splash. She fell off the bank into the water and her elbow hit a rock. I asked if she was okay, but she was sore. We ended up hiking. The hike was short, maybe 35 minutes. What makes it hard was we didn't have the right foot gear and would have to hike in our reef walkers, not the greatest foot gear.

Because it rained yesterday, the falls was pumping. I couldn't contain myself and jumped in and swam to the waterfall. The flow was strong, it was long really hard rain. I admired it for a bit and swam back. I took slow shutter with my camera. It would have been good to use a filter because the sun was ruining my pictures.

I was so happy we took a family picture this time. And yes, I did lug my tripod all the way to the falls, but it was worth it. Jared loved playing in the water, something about it makes him so relaxed.

Droves of tourist game, I'd say over 100. They were just sitting around the area admiring the falls. It looked like stadium seating.

Going back was fast and we launched our kayaks again. This time Malia was with me and Jared was with Michelle. Jared and Michelle took off and were coasting. Malia and I were tired and had a hard time going downstream, which is harder because the wind blows upstream. I think it took us an hour to get back. We were so sore.

All of us were so hungry and we needed to eat. We dropped the kayak equipment off at the rental place and headed to the Coconut Market Place nearby to Bobby V's. The pizza would be such a good carb load after the intense workout of the kayak. I don't think I used these muscles before. It was BYOB at Bobby V's. I went to the ABC store to get a 6 pack of Maui Brewing. I didn't mind spending the $13 for the 6 pack because if I got two beers at a restaurant, it would have cost the same. See I'm not so frugal on vacation. This was a direct shot at Michelle, who doesn't read my entries. She will, maybe after I die.

I was drunk, Michelle had to drive back to the hotel which is like 5 minutes. I feel asleep in those 5 minutes. When we got back to the hotel I was out cold until the night time.