More Day 4
Last update: 05/01/01 10:24 PM
Ok, you've seen the falls and even Kevin thinks their pretty kool but after talking with some of the others in the area a little Japanese boy (Russell was his name I learned later) who looked about all of maybe 10 starts climbing up around the left side of the water. His mother is right behind him and Kevin is hot on their tail. Sheri starts ambling along and catches up. Her Hawaii book says there are more secluded falls both above and below the ones we are currently at. This motivates her and she catches up. We come to a stop when we meet this wall of rocks which is only about 10 feet high but it almost straight up and its wet and slick. Decision is Russell is first, Kevin goes up behind him. We decide to leave the women behind, we'll brave the rough and tumble and report back (note, Russell was brave and the lead, I could barely keep up with him, he'd stop from ahead and call back "are you coming ?"). Somehow, I stopped and planned the next few steps across the rocks but he just kept going and going........we had to climb a fair way and we came upon this.
The whole on the left looked a little scary but otherwise this one was even kooler than the last and was far enough away and enough of a challenge of a climb that the faint of heart ain't even considering going up. Russell and I turned back and headed back down to report on our new findings.
Both Sheri and his mom decide they want to make the climb and we get them up past the initial wall and get them on their way to the next falls. Kevin stops at the top of the first falls to catch his breath and to look down from the top.
First looking back to where the pictures you've seen were taken.
And then looking straight down......
I have night mares all the time of being afraid of heights but here I am sitting at the top of the falls looking down. I can't believe I'm there but I was loving it. It felt extremely safe although it most likely wasn't.
So some others had ventured out to the bottom of the falls. They were quite surprised to look up and see me.
This is them with a little closer view, the camera handled this distance with great sunlight very well. I have a picture of them from the rocks when they were dry somewhere if I can find it. The rocks they are standing on are really slick. Everywhere the water drips is really slick and slimey but they managed to get up there not once but twice. After jumping in once their friends missed the picture (and so did I) so they coaxed them back up again. This time neither of us missed the picture.
With these folks swimming back, I decide to see where Sher has disappeared to. I amble back up the rocks and can't immediately catch up to her. I finally find her and Russell and Russell's mom at waterfall number 2. Sheri is way off in the corner.
So she's off in the corner, way off by herself. Russell's mom gives him the sign to head down and this leaves us.
This is pretty secluded and as soon as Russell and his mom disappear out of sight Sher is going for it. Note she doesn't have her suit with her and actually had left her purse back a few hundred yards. She was really into this waterfalls in Maui thing. So Sheri's going swimming whether she has a suit or not.....
But just before she can do this some others appear who have heard about the falls up top and are dying to get in on it too. So they arrive and are very nice, Kevin takes some pictures for them as they swim out to the waterfall. Now Sheri is sitting in the corner and fustrated with lack of privacy she thought she had just secured. So figuring she may not get another opportunity, she comes up with the next best quote for the trip (after the "bits are free" which is number one). She asks the girl who I had just taken pictures of with her boyfriend and I quote "Do you mind if I take my clothes off ?" At this point Kevin's ears perk up and the girl replys very nicely something to the affect of "yeahhhhhhh its okay by me".
From there Sheri gets to work and our friends disappear.
So off they go and off she goes.....
From here I will edit out most of the next 10-20 shots so we don't scare the children but I can assure you that this is now Kevin's favorite vacation moment of all time, bar none.
So remember that cave, I do wonder what is in there ?
Even when I was swimming I couldn't see anything in here but I wasn't getting to close just to play it safe.
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So we departed here after way more time and excitement than either of us could have imagined.
The rock climbing was fantastic and incredible exercise. I was truly enjoying it long before Sheri changed the way I'll look at waterfalls for the rest of my life. Oh and we have renewed hope for the travel book too as it really nailed this one.
One slight mishap, I spent a lot of time climbing on a lot of rocks from the size of your fist to the size of your car. I did this with cameras and all kinds of stuff. At one point on the way down I had both camera's over my neck on my back and Sheri's purse around my neck also. Why, why did she bring the purse ? Who knows but the point here is that rock climbing in your lands end flip-flops is treacherous, so if any of you know me, my preference is no shoes. I did most of the climbing bare foot. This is not a good idea.
I didn't really realize how bad I had nailed it as the adrenaline of the climb and swim kept me from looking down at it but upon closer investigation, it was rather purple.
Ughhh, people don't want to see this. Back to the road to Hana. Next stop was for the picnic at the next waterfall on the route.
Whoops one last shot of the rocks looking down from the bridge on the way out.
We actually returned the next day and did this little climb in search of the falls below the ones we went swimming in.
From here, the next stop was the picnic where we first have Kevin demonstrating some of the inherited Malm posture problems.
Appears to be sleeping too ? Sher did a good job with the waterfall background though. Here she even got him to smile and look almost human which believe me is no small feat.
Oh, just ran into some post-swim Sheri pics
Oh and one of k, suck in that gut young man.
Yikes. Still needs some sun bad.
So we are back on the road to Hana, we run across a rooster/hen and chicks.
We have much better rooster pics later. Some good Sheri/rooster stories too.
Now some state park pics with less commentary and more pics, here I finally kicked up the resolution on the camera to try to capture some incredible scenery.
This was a state park near the end of the road to Hana. They call it a black sand beach but believe me its not sand. Its lava broken up into little bits. Was a cave or two here but can't find pics at the moment. They didn't come out well anywho as its dark in caves and the old dig camera likes light.
So we arrived in Hana and let me tell you there ain't much of anything to it. Its tiny and its mostly countryside like little places. The hotel/condo this evening in Hana has the basics for cooking (like we are goint to do that), a bed, bathroom and thats about it. No tv (which we haven't even touched since we left the mainland), no air (which we don't need believe it or not) and not even a phone. This killed the postcards for a day or so.
We went out to get a couple things at the local store (there is exactly one) and it carries everything under the sun. We picked up a couple of apples in the fruit cooler and directly above on the top of the cooler they had lawn mowers and gas cans. This place was like out of the 60s. Old, old, old. It apparently had burned down about 10 years ago but you couldn't tell it by me. It was so runned down I couldn't believe it. No pics of this place cause I forgot the camera 8-(
From there we went to dinner at one of the two places in Hana where you can eat. It was a place called the Hana-Maui and was the fanciest hotel we've ever seen. I mean just out of this world. We had a wonderful dinner and afterwards strolled the grounds for hours in what seemed as close to paradise as we've seen. The trees were huge monstrous things. Several pools which were absolutely amazing at night. The grounds were absolutely beautiful. Sher tells me its $400 a night. Yikes.
After the stroll around the grounds, we return to our room to meet Hana.
This is Hana.
We met her when we checked in. Twas a strange yet friendly place. We missed their office ours so they just took our key and pinned it up on the bulletin board for us. As soon as we found it, Hana found us. We met and visitted for awhile but then went on our way to shop and dinner. When we returned from dinner, Hana was waiting for us. As we opened the door to our room, she scooted right by and made herself comfortable. She'd found the right couple obviously.
First she checked out Sheri's suitcase.
Then more carefully.
Here's the both of 'em.
Now Kevin's stuff too.
This one apparently more to her liking is where she decided she was staying.
She actually moved from here to the bed. We left the door to the room open so she could leave if she wished but she picked another comfy spot and was still sleeping with Kevin the next morning.
Remember what I said about Kevin's ability to just light up a picture ?
We've now made it to about day 5 I think. The road back from Hana and the plane trip to Kauii.
Just hit a few miscellaneous leaving Maui shots that I'll stick in here just for kicks.
Ah, maybe tomorrow morning. Good evening.