THE STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN

Well i have had such a busy past 24 hours its been amazing, yesterday morning i woke and went for a run to the light house about 8km. I ran early so it wasn't so hot, came back and had some breakfast then decided to go to Hanauma Bay. Which is famous for snorkelling and lots of tropical fish and turtles. I swam around for about 2 hours looking at schools of fish and beautiful reef but i was more interested in trying to find turtles but sadly that didn't happen. I had my GoPro incase and got a couple of under water shots. I laid on the beach for half hour waiting for the bus and went back into Waikiki. 

Got back had a shower and freshened up a bit and remembered i seen a steak house restaurant the day before which is exactly what i felt like. when i walked in to the restaurant and sat down i realised it was fairly upperclass, it was kind of a little to late to get up and leave. once the menu came out i was shocked at the price but i thought i would just go with it..... possibly the best steak i have had ever, though it was 60 dollars plus the nice glass of red. defiantly not a backpackers budget!! Such a great relaxing time there. I also met some Canadian girls earlier that day in my hostel and they had been travelling Australia for the last 6 months, along the east coast and loved it, we had plans to have some drinks at the hostel after dinner. so went back with a couple of FOSTERS mate.... and talked for ages about there trip and mine, we ended up drinking with a big group of people from the hostel. one of the German girls was telling us about this hike that she was interested in doing called THE STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN, she put a comment on couch surfing a few days earlier to see if there was anyone in Hawaii that wanted to walk it with her, she was telling us about how some random guy had replied to her post and she met up with him that day for a drink to make sure he was a decent guy. Haha we all got talking saying we would all go and do this hike with them, she mention he had a pick up truck and we could all fit in the back. thinking that we had all had a few drinks i didn't have confidence everyone would go through with it. not to mention the hike has been closed since 03, illegal, a security guard is there stopping people from 4am everyday, we would have to leave at 3am, sit in the back of the truck for the half hour drive on the freeway to get there, there is 4,000 basically vertical stairs that go straight up the mountainside into the clouds, its a 6 hour round trip and we were still up drinking till 2am........  

The canadian girls hadn't done anything since they landed in Hawaii a week ago, so i was making them do it because they were flying home the next day at 4pm. We thought we should get at least one hours sleep so we went off to bed with alarms set woke at 3 and got all my gear together and met out front and everyone was out there ready to go. except the Canadian girls so i went in the room and was shaking them trying to wake them and get them out but they wouldn't come when they were so super keen the night before haha. so we left without them. It was so funny going down the freeway at 3am with 11 of us in the (truck) and 7 in the back. we got there and followed direction off the internet on how to find the trailhead and got to the bottom just in time. about 10 minutes into it we seen the security guy pull up at the bottom we rushed up the first bit fairly quickly. it was step and alot harder than i thought, we were a long way up and kept thinking we could see the top but we would get to it and another big ridge full of stairs would appear. after 3 hours we finally made it to the top, there was nothing but cloud and it was fairly cold up there and windy. on the way back down just bellow the cloud the views were just amazing some of the best i have ever seen the photos really don't show just how awesome it was. just  sheer drops off each side off the ridge. I have know idea how they even made this trail, apparently it cost the government 1 million and was never opened for use. we all got the the bottom and were so tired but so happy and glad we did it. There was heaps of group photos. It truly was an amazing spontaneous adventure i will never forget. absolutely loved it and such a great bunch of people. 

Enjoy the pics!!!!!