Manoa Falls Hike: Muddy and Wet, but Worth It

Manoa Falls is a 150-foot waterfall within easy reach of Honolulu via public transportation. To get to the actual waterfall, you must walk along a 1 ½ mile trail through a gorgeous bamboo forest, along the base of the Ko’oaus Mountains. It is somewhat strenuous of a hike, but we saw people of all ages along the trail. The most important thing is to go prepared with waterproof, non-slip shoes and long pants for mosquitoes.

We went to Manoa Falls with five children, as my niece and nephew are also in Hawaii. My kids are very happy to be spending their vacation with their cousins, as they are all very close in age: all of the kids are between the ages of 8 and 10! The kids had no trouble making it up the trail.

The bus ride there was an adventure in itself. Riding around Honolulu on buses with five children has been quite an undertaking. Perhaps because of the heavy Asian influence in Honolulu, talking loudly on the bus is frowned upon. This means that when the kids are up to their usual antics of laughing and talking, they get dirty looks from strangers. One elderly lady even told them to be quiet. We will have to work on trying to fit in and being a bit more quiet on the buses.

Anyway, back to the trip to Manoa Falls. To get to Manoa Falls, we took the Number Five bus to and got off at the last stop. The bus let us off about two blocks from the base of the trail. We walked straight in and found ourselves in an amazingly verdant forest, with hundreds of green bamboo stalks. There were also plenty of cool exotic tree like the banyan, which has vines that grow from the branches to form new roots. These vines are great for swinging on, although we didn’t swing on the vines on this trail, in part because you are not supposed to leave the trail.

Ian, Dante, Soraya, Tatiana, Raymi, Assata, and Nando (in back) with banyan tree

The trail is an uphill climb. It is not too strenuous, but it was muddy, and hence slippery, when we went. I was glad we thought ahead and wore sneakers. I saw a woman struggling with flip flops on and it did not look pleasant at all.

It took about 45 minutes to walk up to the falls. The kids ran ahead of me for most of the time. As usual, they were fearless. When we made it to the top, we were rewarded with a view of the 150-foot waterfall. It is not the most spectacular waterfall I have ever seen, but was pretty cool. We stayed there admiring it for a while until the mosquitoes began to bite us. They didn’t bother us too much as we walked up, but decided to feast upon us once we stopped at the top. I had on jeans, so was okay, but the kids were wearing shorts, and began to complain about the bites. Thus, we turned back and the kids ran back down the trail while I carefully made my way back down to the base of the trail.

Manoa Falls

I have been trying to get the kids to write about our vacation in Hawaii. They are missing a couple of weeks of school and I want them to do something academic. It has been a struggle to get them to write, but we continue to set time aside each day.

Tatiana, one of my ten-year old twins, has decided that she would rather write fiction. Here is her story about Manoa Falls:

We were in the forest searching for the magic waterfall. Me, Soraya, Raymi, Assata and Dante. The waterfall gives three wishes per person. There were a lot of traps. Dante got in most of them. Silly Dante (again). As we were searching we saw a baby monkey. It was so cute! Dante pet it. And when he did the mommy monkey came and started attacking Dante! We didn’t do anything though. Instead, Assata pulled out popcorn from her bag and shared it with everyone. We watched the monkey attack Dante. Then he pushed the monkey off and it ran away with its baby monkey. We continued searching. 2 hours later we found the water fall. Everyone got 3 wishes. Dante wished for peeing longer. I thought it was disgusting. Who wishes for peeing longer? I thought. After that we went home. And when we got home, Dante rushed to the bathroom and when he started peeing he yelled Woohoo!