Chocolate stalactites, tricking falls

Today was our 7^th wedding anniversary, and we decided to celebrate it by getting up at 6am and spending the entire day in a car. :)  After a brief stop at the grocery store to buy sandwiches and water, we headed to the north side of the island for a day of driving through the jungle, past waterfalls, taking turns over one-lane bridges and on the edge of sheer cliffs.

Our first stop was Ho’okipa Lookout, where our viewpoint above the ocean and beach showed dozens of surfers tackling some pretty impressive waves close to some nasty, jagged lava rocks.

Big waves at Ho'okipa Lookout.

Evidently sometimes they get REALLY big - this ledge was pretty high
off the ground!

Closer to the waves at Ho'okipa Lookout.

A surfer at Ho'okipa beach.

Big waves!  (the ocean AND my giant hair, ha!)

Next we stopped at Twin Falls, the first waterfall on the road to Hana.  A short walk was supposed to bring us to two different levels of falls, but the upper level was closed.  The lower level was a small waterfall into a chilly-looking pool that a couple hardy tourists were jumping into, but it was still early in the morning and a bit chilly, so Gavin and I didn’t follow their example.  :)

We stopped for an early lunch at the Ke’anae village, a peninsula off the mainland where a small community lives.  There is a beach park on the ocean, and as we ate our sandwiches we got to wash the waves crashing on the lava rock formations on the shore.

Ke'anae beach park, our lunch break stop.

Our next brief stop was the Wailua Valley State Wayside, a little pullout where a short walk up a few stairs gave us a view into Ko’olau gap, which is a break in rim of Haleakala crater and a beautiful green valley.   There were supposed to be waterfalls visible, but they were completely dry.  Most of the waterfalls we had seen on this road trip have just been trickles, as it hasn’t rained recently.

Wailua Valley State Wayside.

Our next stop was Makapipi Falls, where the 1 lane bridge above the falls gave us a vertigo-inducing view DOWN the waterfall.  Of course our immature selves had a bit of a snicker at the name of the falls.  :)  (make a pee pee, if you pronounce it the way we were...)

We took a slight detour off the road to Hana to see the Hana Lava Tube.  The lava tube is an underground cave system formed by lava flows.  The stalactites and rare stalagmites were formed by lava rather than by dripping water, which created a some really interesting formations that looked like melting chocolate.  Much of the inside of the cave was covered in sparkling silver and gold, which were colonies of bacteria that live in the dark!   There was no lighting; we just had to take the flashlights given to us when we paid our admission fee.  At the end of the public part of the cave about ¼ mile in, we both turned off our flashlights and were surrounded by absolute pitch darkness, with only the sounds of dripping water.  I couldn’t stand it for too long, since some of the “helpful” plaques along the walk had mentioned hammerhead worms that rappel down from the ceiling, millipedes, and pure white crickets that live in the dark…  :)

There is a maze of red ti plants in front of the lava tube.  We didn't go
through the maze because we were feeling short on time.  :)

Stalactites here look like melted chocolate!

After the Hana Lava Tube, we visited Pi’ilanihale Heiau and Kahanu Garden.  The botanical garden had a number of native plants and trees with plaques that detailed their uses in Hawaiian culture.   Pi’ilanihale Heiau inside the gardens is the largest temple in Polynesia, made of black lava rocks.  We were not able to see much of it, as it was blocked off from tourists by a row of dense trees.

Kahanu Garden's "treacherous" coconut grove. There were dozens of signs
around it warning visitors away from walking under the coconut trees
in case a coconut fell on your head.  :)

Kahanu Garden and Pi'ilanihale Heiau.

Pi'ilanihale Heiau, as close as we could get to it.

Walking through Kahanu Garden.

Our next stop was Wai’anapanapa State Park, where we took a short walk to Pa’iloa Bay, said to be Maui’s prettiest black sand beach.  We didn’t stay long here, as the surf was rough and we still weren’t to the end of our drive, but I found the shiny black sand here really intriguing.

Pa'iloa Bay.

Black sand, blue water at Pa'iloa Bay.

Our final stop was the southern end of the Haleakala State Park, where we stopped to do the Pipiwai hike.  This hike was supposed to lead to two waterfalls and a bamboo forest.  I wasn’t sure how long the hike was (turns out four miles round trip…  :D ), but I wanted to see the bamboo forest, though Gavin was protesting that we were going to get stuck in the dark.  :)  So we took a pretty brisk pace, practically almost jogging the whole way.  The first part of the hike was suffused with the sickly sweet aroma of rotting berries that had fallen from the trees above the path.  The first waterfall (Makahiku Falls), like many others on the road to Hana, was just a trickle due to lack of rain.  We continued on the hike and came across a huge banyan tree.  At this point Gavin wanted to turn back, but a couple coming back the other way said we should at least go see the bamboo forest, so I convinced him to keep going.  :)

Makahiku Falls, like others of the day, was
tiny.

A huge banyan tree on the Pipiwai hike. 

Pools from small waterfalls on the way up to
Waimoku Falls.

A little higher on the path, we started crossing over the Pipiwai stream and over several small waterfalls, and then after crossing one bridge suddenly we were surrounded by nothing but bamboo; we had arrived at the bamboo forest!

Peeking through the bamboo.  :)

The trail up through the bamboo forest.

Looking up through the bamboo.

At this point we decided to keep going to the end of the hike, the 400 foot tall Waimoku Falls.  This waterfall was also thin due to lack of rain, but the height was definitely impressive!  Unfortunately, we couldn’t walk up to the bottom of the falls because it was closed due to flash flooding.

Waimoku Falls.

After practically running back down the trail, we got back into the car and decided to drive down the south side of the island rather than going back up the road to Hana to get home.  It was definitely a good decision!  The road wasn’t too bad, though unpaved in places and very narrow. It had lots of fun curves hugging cliff faces and some of the best views of the entire drive today! We stopped the car and watched the sun set into the ocean, then continued on our way.

Maui sunset.

Our trusty MINIVAN rental. Our rental car company offered a deal of
"cheapest rate available for whatever car we give you," and we got a
minivan.  We refused to upgrade to something else out of stubbornness.  :)

Since we had picked this southern route, it took us a LONG time to get back to our side of the island, so long that we didn’t have time to stop at our condo and shower/change for our anniversary dinner reservation at the Lahaina Grill!  So our sweaty, unwashed selves, me in my dusty Five Fingers shoes, humidity-induced, massive mane of wild hair, eyeliner almost completely sweat off, and Gavin in his dirty hiking sandals and sweaty t-shirt, arrived at the Lahaina Grill and had a fancy dinner among people dressed to the nines in their best Hawaiian dresses and khakis.  :)

Our sweaty, dirty selves classin' up the place at Lahaina Grill.

Gavin and our anniversary dessert, aptly named "The
Road to Hana. The stalactites at the Hana Lava Tube
had me craving chocolate for the rest of the day.  :)

After dinner we drove back to our condo and crashed into bed.   No plan for tomorrow, though I am guessing Gavin will ask it involve some actual relaxing.  :)

Sunset sendoff

Our last day in Prince Edward Island we almost wimped out again; this time we almost decided to drive home rather than do the Point East drive.  It had rained in the night, and it was cloudy, windy and cold.  We checked out of our hotel and packed the car, and by the time we were done it had warmed up and the sun had come out, so we decided to go ahead and ride at least half of the drive.

The first stop on the Point East trail is Greenwich, also part of the Prince Edward Island National Park on the north coast.  There are walking/biking trails in this part of the park, and we chose the trail that had a long boardwalk across Bowley Pond to get to the sand dunes and the beach.

A huge patch of wildflowers on the Greenwich Dunes trail.

Gavin and I in the wildflowers.

Boardwalk.

Panorama of the boardwalk. See that dune in the distance on the left?

Over the pond, now we can see the dunes!

The Greenwich dunes and the others in P.E.I. National Park are different than what I think of as sand dunes.  Rather than being rolling hills of bare sand, these dunes are covered in vegetation with very few bare patches! Walking on the dunes is strictly prohibited to help preserve the vegetation.

Greenwich beach, and life-covered dunes on the right!

Once we got over the small dunes to the beach, I decided that I needed to at least feel the sand and water with my feet on this last day on the beach, even though I knew I had to put my motorcycle boots back on afterward.  I tried to get Gavin to join me, but he wasn’t interested in sandy feet in his boots.  :)

Gavin is amused as I play in the water.  :)

After our walk we went back to St. Peter’s, one of the tiny towns we had passed through on the way to Greenwich, and had some of the best fish and chips ever at Rick’s Fish ‘n Chips, another surprisingly awesome restaurant for being the only one for miles.  I asked the waitress if Point East was worth driving to and how far it was, and she highly recommended it, and she also recommended we visit the Singing Sands beach a little farther down the other side of the island.  We decided to take her advice and continue our ride.

Point East, the easternmost tip of the island, was about 45 minutes from our lunch.  There wasn’t much there, just a lighthouse and restaurant; the shore was fenced off due to danger of waves.  I get the impression that locals go there on the weekend to hang out and picnic in the grass below the lighthouse, but as it was Monday, there were only a few tourists there.

After Point East we headed to the Singing Sands beach at Basin Head.  This was a beautiful white sand beach surrounded by rusty red cliffs.  It is named Singing Sands because the sand makes an interesting noise when you shuffle your feet through it.  It took Gavin and I while to figure it out; we were kicking the sand, dragging our feet through it, stomping in it, thinking about asking the locals how to make the sand sing…  We gave up, and then as we were walking to one end of the beach I made the sand sing on accident as I was walking, and then we had it figured out.  :)  It is less like “singing” and more like the sound your jeans make when they rub together as you walk, but it was still unique for a beach!  :)  Here I finally got Gavin to take off his shoes and walk in the water with me. 

I'm walking around in a circle entertaining myself by making the sands sing.

Gavin sitting safely on a rock while I
play in the sand.

Since we wanted to be on our way home this evening, we drove back on highways rather than doing the southern portion of the drive.   On the way back I got yet ANOTHER bee up in my helmet!  Luckily it was also dead and harmless from hitting the front first.  I had to pull over on the side of the highway to get it out.  Gavin is convinced I need a new helmet; he has not had a single bug go up into his.  I have had several small bugs, but this trip took the cake for the bees... 

Back at the hotel, we broke our record and got the bikes loaded up on the trailer in 35 minutes, then we headed for home.

On our way across the Confederation Bridge a beautiful sunset gave us a wonderful sendoff from P.E.I.  A lovely way to end a wonderful vacation!

Sunset from the Confederation Bridge.

Accidental fusion food. :)

This morning we woke up to a very cloudy, windy and cold morning, so we wimped out on riding the motorcycles.  We decided to take Gavin’s Xterra and drive the North Cape Coastal Trail, which goes around the west side of the island.  We also decided to drive it in cars because it is the longest, and it doesn’t leave from Charlottetown; so we would have been riding well over 200 miles in the cold and wind.

We quickly discovered that this trail wasn’t quite as scenic as the one Central Coastal Drive from yesterday.  The route followed the coast, but very rarely could we actually see it.  It was mostly farmland, and it also detoured into literally every tiny 10-houses town on the route.  Very few of these tiny towns had anything to attract us, not so much as a gas station, shop or a restaurant!  We finally stopped at a visitor’s center to ask when we could expect to see a restaurant so we could have lunch.  :)

Me on one of the small beaches on the North Cape Coastal Drive. Not a
person in sight, but too cold to swim.  :)

About a half hour farther on the trail, we stopped at the restaurant called The Catch; literally the only restaurant for miles.  Surprisingly, it had great seafood, and it was on a harbor where fishermen were preparing for lobster season; stacks of traps lined the docks.  (since it is the only restaurant for miles, they could easily have been a terrible restaurant and we would have still eaten there gladly!  :)  )

At the topmost point of the island, the North Cape, we got to see the North Cape wind farm.  I’ve seen many of those big windmills before, but this one had a blade lying on the ground that you could get close to; I had no idea they were so big!!!  And we also got to get within 5 feet of the bottom of one of the windmills; I’ve never been that close to one, either, or heard the powerful blades whooshing through the air.

There was a short walking trail at the North Cape wind farm. People had
stacked stones all over on the shore.

Windmill!

Even though this route wasn’t as scenic as the last, Prince Edward Island certainly has beautiful road ditches and wildflowers!  Entire ditches overflow with Queen Anne’s Lace, or wetter ones are full of cat tails.  Many are exploding with purple and yellow flowers, with hundreds of bees humming over them.  

Lovely wildflowers!

A field of Queen Anne's Lace.

When we got back to Charlottetown it had started raining, and the band on Victoria Row was canceled, so we chose an indoor restaurant instead.  I ordered an amusing dish of coconut curry.  It was amusing because obviously the curry paste/spices were for a thai curry dish, but it was served with naan, basmati rice and a samosa.  :)  Accidental fusion food.  :)

Hopefully the weather behaves itself tomorrow; we have one scenic drive left to the eastern side of the island!

A bee in my bonnet. (literally)

Today we hopped back on our motorcycles to drive the Central Coastal Drive; a scenic route that leaves Charlottetown and goes north to the Green Gables shore, then heads south along the Red Sands Shore.  It only took us about a half hour to drive from the south of the island to the north (P.E.I. is about the size of Delaware), where the Green Gables shore encompasses the Prince Edward Island National Park, a shoreline with beach after huge beach of perfect soft, red sand and supposedly the warmest ocean water north of the Carolinas; we didn’t get into the water since it was only about 65 degrees and WINDY today.  We stopped off at several beaches just to take a look, and the continued on the trail.

Me getting windblown on one of the lovely red sand beaches.

Another lovely beach.  I have no idea why I am glowing.  Maybe my phone
caught my aura.  :)

Red sands, beautiful waves.

We stopped for gas around lunch time, and we ended up getting gas station sandwiches for lunch since I was hungry and we hadn’t seen any restaurants so far on the trail.

Life is rough on a motorcycle, eatin' sandwiches on a gas station curb...

After lunch we accidentally got off the trail and took a long detour all the way back to Charlottetown before realizing we were off the trail, so we had to go all the way back and get on the trail again!  So much for me trying to save battery charge by leaving my cell phone map off…  

Once we got back on path, a little farther along the shore we came upon the Green Gables Heritage Place, which is the location of the actual house and area written about in Anne of Green Gables.  We wandered through the house and took brief walks down “Lover’s Lane” and into the “Haunted Woods.”  We thought it was a little out of character for us to be wandering around Green Gables in motorcycle gear.  :)

The Anne of Green Gables house.

Carriage out back.

Gavin in the barn of Green Gables.

A little side note, a matter of pride for me…  You may know I have one huge fear in life, and that is insects, spiders, etc; basically anything that has more than 4 legs…  While enjoying our sunny ride suddenly a BEE got into my helmet as I am going 55mph down the road…  I could see it out of the corner of my eye sitting right down inside the visor…  Why it is a matter of pride is I DIDN’T WRECK THE MOTORCYCLE.  I was able to control my terror and stop and yank off my helmet and dump it out!  Go me!

Granted, it was a small bee, and it was already dead from hitting the front of my helmet, and then it got sucked in already dead.  :)

Some scenery from the Central Coastal Drive.

 

I don't know what crop this is in the field behind me, but it had the most
incredibly bright yellow flowers.  The color didn't come out near as brilliant
in the photo!

On the way to the south part of the trail, I managed to get us off trail again, and we got on the main highway back to Charlottetown.  It was REALLY WINDY; Gavin accused me of weaving on the road, but I was just getting buffeted by the wind itself and the wind of passing cars and had to keep adjusting!  After several miles of this, we decided it was too awful to stay on that road and I opened the map to find us another route back to Charlottetown.  The route I picked happened to have the bridge completely out, but right as I discovered this a couple of friendly local bikers pulled up behind us and offered to let us follow them to Charlottetown, so we got an impromptu group ride for a few miles.

Back in Charlottetown, we went out for dinner again in Victoria Row since there were more outdoor restaurants to choose from.  Tonight the band was a cover band playing pretty much all of Gavin’s favorite songs, so we stayed out a bit later listening to them.  Then we went back to the hotel to go to bed.  Tomorrow we will choose one of the other scenic drives P.E.I. has to offer!