Camp Ho'omaluhia

July 19-20 2009

This past summer, we decided to go camping. Since we are not experienced campers by any stretch of the imagination, we chose to go to Ho'omaluhia Botanical Garden on the Windward side. We wanted someplace fairly safe, not too far from civilization, and would also let you build a fire.
We went out a week earlier to scout several places. Ho'omaluhia seemed to be the safest because they close the gates at night and seemed to have some security personal roaming around. The camp sites there were nice and clean and were spaced out a good distance from each other so you have some privacy but also close enough together so that you can keep an eye out for each other. Most of the sites have fire pits and there are public bathrooms with showers.

So we got our camping gear together and gathered a bunch of wood for the fire. I went to the beach to grab a bunch of drift wood and also went to City Mill to take some scrap wood that they were giving away. I thought I had enough wood, but I now know, there is no such thing as enough firewood.

Here's some pics from the park. It's really beautiful there since the park has a lake and is located at the base of the Ko'olau mountain range.







The thing I was looking forward to the most was the fire. I may very well be a closet pyro. I researched a bunch of camp fire building techniques and ended up building the classic teepee with kindling and small wood and a square of larger pieces of wood around it. I also cheated a bit and brought along some cotton balls that were soaked in torch fluid. The fire caught quickly and if you didn't already know this...wood burns pretty fast. But the fire burned nice and hot throughout most of the night. We cooked up some steak kabobs for dinner and roasted up some s'mores later that night for dessert.




Towards the end of the night we rolled up some cardboard pieces that we got at Costco and tossed them on the fire. Those burned real nice too.

The next day we walked over to the lake and did some fishing. The lake is full of Talapia and the park has open fishing hours during the day. You basically put your line in the water and you get a fish. That's the type of fishing I like. We used bread as bait and that was working pretty good for us. There were some people nearby that were catching some larger fish and they were using pieces of corn for bait. I think that kept the smaller fish away, since they probably couldn't eat the entire piece of corn. Next time we'll bring some corn.



All in all, we had a great time camping. We're stil not the camping types and more than likely we will do more "camping" at hotels. But it was nice to get out and experience nature and have some quality family time.