Pololu Valley is almost at the northern tip of the big island, it is a magical valley where time slows down and dreams come true...you go in one person and come out with new perpectives and hopes. There are multiple valleys in a row starting with Waipio and ending with Pololu...all of which can be hiked to by a long, winding, hiking trail that looks like something in a tropical, botanical garden.
A few blog posts may be required to write about the adventure in its entirety...but
Mike's birthday was April 10th and what better way is there to spend your birthday than in a beautiful valley communing with nature. We stayed from the 9th to the 14th, an excellent amount of time to really learn about the valley and ourselves. The morning of Mike's birthday we got to see an incredible sunrise! We could actually see the sun break over the horizon without any clouds blocking the view...
Most people would have packed it up on the second day because of high speed winds and off and on torrential rains with the odd sunny moments. But we said bring it on!! Our tent was sturdy and unmoved by the weather which is nice because the last one we had might have collapsed under conditions that weren't so forceful.
Some friends of ours showed up on Tuesday for some windy, camping fun. Spirit (literally her legal name) was gifted a six person tent by some people in Hilo...due to the large size of the tent no one else felt it was necessary to bring another tent, except one boy who had a two-three person child's play tent...or at least that's what it looked like. The person that gifted it to her should be kicked in the butt or Spirit should have put the tent up for inspection before carting it all the way to pololu...it was a disaster!!! It didn't heave one of the corners intact for stacking and all the ropes for securing on the outside were broken. When I was setting it up for them all I said was, they might get one use out of this tent...
And of course the wind and rain were really, extra forceful that night. From my tent it sounded like torrential rain and pounding wind (my tent didn't move a muscle).
Next morning we awoke and crawled out of our tent and saw their tent in a devastating heap on the ground. All of their things were soaked and there were two people huddled together under a tree. It looked like they had survived a natural disaster or something. They had all ended up sleeping in the tiny tent and there were 5 people!! Spirit said she stuck with it until it was just about to completely horizont, she finally had to abandon ship...
Unfortunately I don't have pictures of the destroyed tent but I hope I described it enough...here are
some beautiful pictures!
We definitely learned something on this trip, don't trust people with free tents!! Always open and put up a free tent before traveling over a hundred miles to go camping with it and possibly have a plan B...
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