Exploring Hawaii: Lulumahu Falls

This weekend, I saw this amazing saying on Instagram.  By the way, you can follow me on Instagram @extraspecialteaching.  It's my new favorite place to be!  :)

Since my One Little Word is balance this year, I have been trying so hard to collect moments. 

This weekend, we headed out to explore Lulumahu Falls.  This was a fabulous hike, but I would definitely follow Yelp directions to help you find it.  Seriously, what did hikers do before Yelp?

Anyway, it was a pretty cool hike and a little different than some other ones we've been on since there are a lot of different scenery changes along the way.

You start off going through a bamboo forest, which is just freaking cool.

Then you get to walk through a forest of these trees.  I don't know what they are, but the trees reminded me of Dr. Seuss' Truffula trees.  Super cool!

A walk up these cobblestone steps….

let's you out to this view!

On our way back, some college kids were debating whether they should jump off this or not.  I hope they didn't, because that would have just been dumb!

Then you get to trek through some mud, through a stream, over and under some fallen trees, and over some boulders.  I have to say that I felt like this really encourage some critical thinking skills of the dogs and the kids as they figured out how to get where they needed to go.

Stopping for shaka pictures on the way is mandatory.  :)

And then you reach your destination!  It was a really cool waterfall!

There's a pretty big pool at the bottom of the waterfall.  Not enough to jump into but deep enough that the kids could have splashed around and had fun.  However, we didn't want the kids to get leptospirosis  so we didn't let them get in.

This is definitely a hike we'll be doing again!

Pros:

1.  Not very long or steep.

2.  Amazing waterfall!

3.  Pretty cool to see all the different scenery changes along the way.

4.  Not very crowded!

5.  Totally fine for dogs.

Cons:

1.  Muddy (but we don't mind).

2.  You have to climb over and under fallen trees and boulders.  Might be an issue with younger kids (our 8-year-old triplets were fine) or people who aren't as confident with this kind of thing.

3.  Definitely need some kind of directions (like Yelp) to find it.