A Hike Along the Old Pali Road

Along the Old Pali Road

I called Pete this afternoon as the wind was down and I figured he was already burned out working. I was right. We met at the Pali Lookout parking lot an hour later. I didn't want to do much as I screwed up my back with that bottle pack a few days ago. I'm stretching things out and trying to walk upright now. So we walked down the the old road, and ducked under the new highway to continue the old road stroll. It was pleasant. The weather was shifting from cloudy and rain to sunshine. We didn't get too wet or too cold and didn't have to fight the sun either.

Pete has been spending most of his time wind surfing. He filled me in on his exploits and showed me a new web sight that monitors the winds. He can key into Kailua Beach, set a minimum average speed and the site will page him when the speeds have exceeded that average for a set number of minutes. Pretty neat.








The Pali Trail, Kailua-side.Drawing from Fisquet,

Voyage of the Bonite, 1836. Courtesy Hawai‘i State Archives.

We walked down the old road and actually found a set of older roads near the bottom where the Kailua branch intersects the New Pali Highway. It looks like they improved the old forties road and cut off a switchback in the fifties. There was also another smaller road the branched off the old Pali road and headed back toward the eastern side of the hill, where the new road now runs. That must have been the access road to the Seminary which is now accessed via the new road. It has been there for a long time. It needed an access road to Kailua before the new road went in. Interesting to find all this.

We hiked back up the hill to the Pali Overlook. On the way up Pete found a small Jackson's Chameleon Lizard, not more than a week or two old. It is one of those moving kind with the horns. It was the color of the road it was crawling across. He picked it up and put it in the bushes where it likely perished from having to find its way back out onto the road again.

We finished up the hike by going to the Big City Diner and drinking vast quantities of beer and eating large plates of Pupu. Pete showed me his 'Star Gazer', some computerized piece of junk that he is thrilled with. He has been trying to convince me of the value of this 'As seen on TV' item for at least six months. I finally got to see it today and have to admit that it is a bigger piece of shit than I had feared it would be. The only thing it could find was the moon, and that was because I was slappin my ass and screamin "over here Clowno!" really loudly so he had to point it toward me. (In all fairness, on a later date we went down to Kailua Beach and it is a really neat little piece of electronics.)

It was a good walk, my back feels much better, though anything should feel better after a few 24 ounce stines. We stayed around to watch Ohio State, Pete's old school, finish up against Texas. The only thing that failed more miserably than the Buckeyes was that electronic piece of junk Pete calls a star gazer.