Ahupua'a 'O Kahana State Park and Blue Hawaii

We are hiking for a change of pace today. Not far up the road is Ahupua'a 'O Kahana State Park. We start with the drier and shorter Kapa'ele'ele Kp'a and Keaniani Kilo trail. This goes along the coast. the Kapa'ele'ele Ko'a is a shrine dedicated to fishing that is facing the sea. The Keaniani Kilo is a lookout where the fish watcher would look for the flashing of akule fish in the bay. he would signal to fisherman by means of a flag of white kappa. The fishermen would surround the fish with their nets and all the villagers would gather on shore to pull the nets in and share in the catch. An additional portion was set aside for visitors called an malihini. you can see the Huilua pond across the bay. 
Upon our return we set out on the more adventuresome loop through the valley. Insect repellent was the order of the day and thank goodness we had applied it. At times even with that youn could not stand still. We were swarmed. So we drive a little further up the valley and park. We then walk through an area where locals still live and up a service road to the trail head. Here you sign in to walk the Nakoa trail. This is the wettest valley on Oahu and we are warned about the showers. However we have clear sailing the whole way. this is good as some streams are I'm Asa Le after a rain. we are able to wade all streams easily.
The trail is narrow and muddy, there are signs of pigs and we are aware the hunting season is open, but no one has signed in to say they are uo there while we are. They generally have dogs with them so we would have been aware of the noise.
At times you can see how much water actually comes down the trail by the amount of duff pushed around on the forest floor..or should I say jungle. We see lots of Kukui or candlenut, Hau used for making rope, Ti which is used for many things such as lei making and thatching,  Ohi'a 'ai or mountain apple, guava,and Mango. The trail down has a bed of crushed coral from when the army in WWI created a jungle warfare training site here. they say over  300,000 soldiers learned to live off the land here. I hope they had bug repellent. 
By the time we were out we were ready for more to drink and some beach time before heading to oir home where a spin in the kayak was a nice way to finish out the afternoon. 
Roger has got an app so we can watch a movie on the iPad on the lanai.what better than Elvis in Blue Hawaii as the sun goes down. 
I forgot to mention they are filming a new series at the park called the River which is supposed to be out in January. This is an adventure series set in the Amazon. I might just take a boo at that.