Kaena Point Nature Reserve

A weather-worn sign by the entrance to the 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).  Nonetheless, we decided to chance it when the College Kid was here for a visit over spring break.  It was a nice, breezy day.  Those of us who wore sunburn and are used to the Hawaii sun didn't get burned.  College Kid, with a vampire-like complexion after a long winter near the Canadian border in Washington state, did get a little sunburn in spite of sunblock.

The good news was that the steady breeze kept us from overheating as we worked our way over the quite rugged roads from the Waialua/North Shore side.

The trail wasn't difficult to find, even though one of the two highways to the North Shore was closed down for repairs.  This detour took a bit of extra time, but it wasn't too bad.  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 car 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 saw.  There were some crabs hunting around the tidepools, though.

The 4WD road is a lot bumpier than it looks here.

A long, boring, but mostly flat (elevation-gain-wise) trail.

Miles of crashing shoreline.

And the vegetation along the trail. 

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.

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 ground was covered in sand here, and there were lots of signs describing the birds that were nesting around.  We saw the 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 or try to see eggs.  I trust they were sitting there, though, nesting on their eggs.  Well protected.

Inside the reserve, the path is all sand.

Nesting birds.

Nesting Birds keeping an eye out for food (and predators maybe).

We kept on walking through the reserve, until reaching the end of Kaena Point.  At the Point, I could see down the Waianae coast (on the Leeward side of the island).  You can walk to the Nature Preserve from the Waianae side as well, but it doesn't look like a much nicer walk in.  For us, it's not worth the extra drive time, although I do like driving up the Waianae coast.

At Kaena Point, with Waianae coast in the background.

The Waianae coast, and the dirt trail from the Waianae side to Kaena Point.

Kaena Point is pretty rocky, and is definitely not a swimming beach.  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.  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 that quickly on the rocks.  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...

There is a seal sticking its head just out of the water in this pool-- see it?

Watch out Monk Seal!

"OUCH!"

If he could move quickly over the rocks, he would...

Keeping an eye out now...  Note the LARGE monk seal behind him resting across the rocks.  Looks like a sheet of metal.  

Anyway, it was very cool to see these endangered animals in the wild.  After that, we hiked back along the trail (it 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?"

View along the North Shore of Oahu.

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 again to work our way back home.  All in all, a fun outing and I was so glad to have seen the seabirds and monk seals.  Next time maybe I'll try this hike in January so as to try to spot some whales off the coast, as I have heard that mid-March is a bit too late to see whales.