…same same but different 🙂 This morning started as it’s best, almost no clouds and blue sky. I really enjoyed being one of the first at the Koke’e Lodge and getting my breakfast: Pancakes with syrup, eggs easy over and Portuguese Sausage for myself and about a hour power for the MacBook for writing a blog post at night. The view from inside and the silence before the tourists flood starts, priceless. Now i wished to camp up there, but then i remembered the temperatures at night 🙂 Yesterdays hike wasn’t bad with about 22km but the sun motivated me to head on with hiking. The valley looked so great without any clouds and i decided to choose the Canyon Trail which leads on the edge with great views into it. My first idea doing a long circle hike via the Ditch Trail was canceled because the ranger told me it’s a really unmaintained trail and shouldn’t be hiked without an guide, so i trusted him. Thanks to technique, a snapshot of the trails is always on my phone but also had a paper map as backup which i bought the day before.
The starting point was few miles below the Lodge, where also the tour(ist) busses stops and people do the short cliff trail to get a short view to the canyon and the water”fall”. It was really interesting how many people “hike” this way up and down, but don’t really get the beauty of this nature. Damn, i still have to complain about these “hiking” tourists. A father with an baby on his front went an slippery trail down on flip-flops/slippers. You may notice on some pictures missing fences and the very gravel and loose ground. Once you slip the way down, there is nothing where you can hold you. Reached the water”fall” i was really disappointed, like some of the others, because we all thought more about having a better view of the very long waterfall you could see from distance and the other side of the valley. It maybe was about 2meters high and had an small pool. Okay, a picture and then head on.
But where? The tourist Autobahn to the water”fall” was broad but beyond this point it was very difficult to figure out the direction. I followed some footsteps which which just misleads me into and dead end but finally i got back to the track. Due to some experience on some trails, more and more the idea becoming an ranger for an national park an maintain tracks came up in my mind. The trail was now more its name worth and not an broad tourist highway. While passing the rim of the canyon a couple passed me, we both looked to each other and i remembered to her, because she looked like Melissa, The Girl from Everywhere, before each of us headed on. Maybe the reason, that tourists aren’t good hiker, very seldom they post “long” roundtrip hikes on their maps, so i decided to combine multiple hikes. “Canyon Cliff Trail, Canyon Trail, Kumuwela Trail, Halemnau-Koke’e Trail and Black Pipe Trail”. All this trails had signs but the condition and directions wasn’t easy to figure out and so i missed the junction of the Black Pipe Trail and i had to do beginning of the Canyon Trail/Highway again. Where i met the same couple again and we both felt like chased and had to laugh.
Not bad, again 22km of hiking, i’m getting very well in hiking this distances and time. The time of sunset came closer and i wanted to get back to the sea level, because it was there 10°C warmer as in the Koke’e Park. Okay, one more night, the last night in the car, then my permission for the Polihale Statepark will be valid and i can camp the first time in my life between sand dunes. I choose the the Russian Fort Park again, because it is so silent (exept the roosters in the morning) and i have LTE signal for uploading my blog. Again, i experienced one awesome sunset…(2014/12/28)