For month on end we were planning to meet our friend Phoenix for longer and to preferably go for a little hike! There are so many trails on the island, why not enjoy one together!? We saw her for an hour on Christmas Day on our way back from the family gathering on the north shore, as we stopped on Kealia Beach by Kapa’a where she lives. We met conspiratorially secretive on the parking lot at the beach and shared some Christmas cookies – a surely different but not necessarily less festive moment among friends. 🙂 In January she stopped on the Westside as she was on the way to visit another friend in our neighborhood – and we welcomed the new year, ate at least dinner together and agreed to go hiking soon! The date was set for February 18th! Than my Dad ended up excessively long on the intense care unit in Germany – and the rest is history: I flew to visit him on 16th and the hike had to wait!
Now the opportunity had come, and we easily agreed on one exciting destination: The Sleeping Giant! This mountain, also called Nounou, is located on Kauai’s east side between Wailua and Kapaʻa in the Nounou Forest Reserve. Its ridgeline resembles a lying human, inspiring the funny name. Local legends tell that a giant named Puni fell asleep after a massive feast and became part of the land… Like every trail on Kaua’i – you always have to expect muddy path’ and rocks to be climbed.
And so we startet on the west entrance, with a beautiful tree-lined natural avenue with Cook pines. Also delightful smelling Eucalyptus trees, where the precious resin just dripped out of the bork. Till the top we needed like 45 minutes and on the final vertical meters, we had quite a bit of climbing to do. I just once was here, like nine years ago, but I could not recall those scary last steps and the 360° view. Wonderful!
What I did remember were the picnic pavilions – and so we stopped there on the way down again and had a yummy little snack! After we got down to the parking lot and talked for another hour we decided to visit a popular food-truck in Kapa’a and grabbed some yummy tacos there, Phoenix invited us even and we finished our gathering with an nice early dinner! So: nice views, nice walks, nice talks, nice food – looking very much forward to our next get together… 🙂