Forbidden Island #2

The day after Christmas, 15 hardy souls decide to visit Forbidden Island to experience the spectacular view and get in some exercise after a big Christmas meal. Besides Handy, Cutie, Giggles, and Captain Charlie, who has made advanced notice to her visiting family members about this "tough" hike, the additional hikers are nephews Henry and Sam, nieces Angela and Kelly, children Jamie, Ryan, Xin, five-year old Nuan, Chloe, Justin, and Rexplorer. At the crack of dawn, the three-car caravan head to the trail head.

With island in sight, everyone eagerly descends to get closer.

Giggles is excited after an absence of 20 years since her last visit to Forbidden Island

Rexplorer helping Chloe rope down the steep cliff, Xin looks on with some sckepticism

Kelly goes next, with no problems

Handy happily performs hikers' favorite "butt-walk" down the sandy slope, with the help of his hiking pole

Henry takes a rest on the beach

Rexplorer in teaching action, showing the different coral formations

Sunrise casting long shadows as hikers explore the shoreline for interesting findings

Chloe and fearless five-year old Nuan

Ever well prepared Cutie shielding wind and rain. Fortunately neither lasts very long

Rexplorer, Justin, Xin, and Sam in the swim hole, keeping a respectful distance from the edge

Justin, Xin, and Ryan checking out the other "swimming hole" with Rexplorer's help

Sam doing a yoga pose, CC, Giggles, Rexplorer, Kelly with Xing, Chloe, Justin, Nuan hiding behind Justin, Angela, Ryan, Jamie, and Henry. Not in picture: Handy and Cutie already part way up the hill

It is definitely a great hike for everyone. We are happy that everyone wakes up early and gets ready swiftly for our usual meeting time to start the hike. This is a must-do hike for all visitors.

Circle Hike

With most hikers still busy biking, traveling and engaging in other activities, three of us continue our Sunday hike tradition last Sunday. We choose the old stand-by circular route from our driveway since the Xterra trail has been cleared recently.

Peppy arrives at 6 am, but Chops takes the 6:15 starting time more seriously and arrives exactly then. We three take off up the potholed Savana Road. With much catching up on our various updates, we keep a good pace through the chicken farm and old Esco, down Talofofo Road. It is a cool and breezy morning so we are very comfortable even on some of the steeper hills. After beating through wet and tall grass last week, keeping our legs clean and dry now seem like a luxury. We reach Kingfisher golf course entrance quite a bit sooner than we expect. We take a short break at the base of Xterra trail and get acquainted with the barking dogs, roaming roosters, and a show-off turkey.

The Xterra trail has indeed been cleared, and judging from the amount of cuttings on the ground we can see how much it must have grown in before the clearing. Just as we come to the end of the flat pathway, we all spot a fresh lime lying in the middle of the path. As we raise our eyes, we see the beautiful kaffir tree is loaded with plump round lime fruit. We of course have to stop and pick some of this rare find. Having hiked past this tree many times over the years, this is the first time we find it fruiting.

Further up the trail, we are quite shocked to find that the trail has been eroded and rutted severely during this year's many heavy rainfalls. One section of the trail has not only dropped off precariously, nearly cutting off the trail, the remaining section is also uncomfortably undermined. We can see how the water has rushed down the side of the trail and washed off the weak section. The trail continues to show deep gouges all the way to the round-about section. It appears that some of the mountain bikers would really enjoy such a challenging trail.

We end the hike at CC's back deck to enjoy a cup of coffee. We agree that the hike is a good one to stretch out our legs and exercise our lungs.

Peppy & Chops showing off muscles

Barking dog...

Strutting rooster...

Show-off turkey...

Peppy & CC picking up limes...

Chops (aka Stretch) reaching for high branch

Peppy's pockets full of limes

Huge erotion

Relaxing with Sukha

New Caves

After two weeks of hiatus, the Sunday Hikers resume the routine last Sunday. Three "muskateers", Chops, Giggles, and Captain Charlie, take off at the Last Command Post, heading toward Banzai Cliff Trail. On the road to the cliff, the wind blows so strongly that we can barely hear ourselves talk and "gossip". But as soon as we enter the trail, we are sheltered from the wind.

As we approach the Cow Town beach, we can hear the roaring of the sea, so we detour to the beach and are rewarded with the impressive scene of massive waves rolling onto the beach. It seems to be even bigger than the ones we saw three weeks ago. 

Coming out of the Cow Town Trail, we veer up to Santa Claus Lane in search of the two caves. The entrance is easy to spot, as someone has installed a yellow ribbon next to the old red ribbon. We enter the boonie and follow the ribbons. The boonie is fairly thick and damp, and full of rocks and tree branches. so we are careful to pick our way and locate the first cave. It is very wet and slippery down there, so we only take a look at it and proceed to the next cave, which is also slippery. We will definitely bring ropes during drier days to explore both caves.

We exited back on the CowTown trail and the main road. We make a quick stop at the roadside cave to check out the old war relics and a very realistic looking "mother and child" formation of two rocks. We figure many of these rocks have tumbled down the cliff during cannon bombings, and some of them rest quite precariously on smaller rocks barely large enough to support these huge boulders.

We chat with the souvenirs salesman at LCP and see some cute stuff. 

Giant waves at Cow Town

By the second cave

Checking out the cave on Middle Road

Mother and Child rocks

Looking good...

Cute Piggy Bank for sale

The hike is not very long, but a good one to get back on our feet.

It's a Crack-up

After a stormy and windy night, this morning turns out sunny and bright. Three hardy souls and one canine meet at Last Command Post for the hike to the Marpi Crevice. Chops, Rex, CC, and super hiker dog Sukha head up Suicide Cliff Road and locate the trail entrance by the third tree.
Chops is instantly enchanted by the trail, or actually the lack of it. Crashing through the mother-in-laws'-tongues grove, we wonder who has come up with that name. A brief stop at the big tree where shards of old broken pottery of Japanese cups, bowls, plates, and bottles stirs our immagination of the soldiers having a final dinner party before the start of the final battle.
After retrieving Sukha from the other side of the barbed wire fence, we reach the cliff face and carefully inch our way toward the crevice. Concquaring her claustrophobic fear, Chops forges ahead into the narrow crevice, all the while marveling at it. It is a windy day and we can hear the whistling of the wind through the trees above us. At the end of the crevice, we find the old navy mess bowl still resting on the narrow ledge.
Instead of turning around and retracing our steps back to the start, we decide to continue on the other side of the crevice to get back to the road, since there are orange ribbons clearly visible. But the trail continues up hill, with lots of boulders and rocks to climb over. With no sign of the trail going downhill, and the climb becoming steeper, we realize that it may just be leading to the top. Rex decides to explore ahead, and let Sukha stay with us midway around a flat area. Chops and CC love the climb, comparing the similarity of this climb to the Laderan Tanke "trail". Soon Rex comes back, all excited, that there is a big cave above with lots of relics. We decide to come back another time to complete the climb.
We head downhill without any clear trail markings, figuring that if we stay to the right, we will eventually meet up with the original trail. Feeling like real explorers, we find ourselves in a beautiful woodsy plain, with giant trees, mushrooms, a couple of old concrete blocks for old water pipes, and the ubiquitous beer cans, and other modern day trash. We figure these were left by coconut crab hunters.
Eventually we find pink ribbons and exit on the main road. With the brushes recently cleared along the pathway, we notice many red ribbons marking entrances to other trails. A sizable cave clearly visible from the road shows a collection of gas masks, cups, bullets, etc neatly preserved inside. We realize that there are many more trails we can explore in the future. At this point, we christened Rex with his hiking nickname: Rexplorer.
With wind blowing pretty hard, we make a stop at Banzai Cliff to watch the foamy water crashing against the cliff. It is quite imressive. Another quick stop at Bird Island Lookout shows a much calmer sea.
We head home at 9:30, after enjoying a truly adventurous hike.

Mother-in-laws'-tongues wagging

Chops holding up the falling rock!

Checking out the navy plate

Strange old tree

Cement block for water pipe, where does it go?

Well deserved rest

Look what we found!

Sukha exhausted...

Banzai goes foamy

Marpi Caves

Taking it a little easy this morning, with all Sunday Hikers unable to attend, Rex and CC take our dog Sukha start out at 7 a.m. to search for the mysterious Marpi caves that eluded us last week.
Since we are not sure how far Sukha can walk, we park our car by the big taotaomona tree and head for Santa Claus Lane. Lo and Behold, the faded red ribbon is indeed the entrance to the trail, so Cutie was right to want to try that trail last week. When we enter the boonie there doesn't seem to be much evidence of a trail, but soon we spot the first red ribbon in the boonies. After following more ribbons we finally come upon the large cave.
It is pretty wet and slippery going down the cave, so we have to be quite careful. We decide not to go all the way down, since CC forgets to bring gloves, the way down is more challenging. Also, a strong rope would be advisable.
Instead of doubling back out, we decide to take the other trail that will come out of the dump road. Surprisingly, we come upon another large cave which is deeper and narrower. CC stays upside with Sukha as we don't want him to slip on the moss covered rocks and fall down the crevice, Rex disappears into the cave and reports that it is interesting.
Our search is a success, we head out to the dump road. CC inaugurates the pink polka dot ribbon to mark part of the trail out.

Sukha the new hiker, with Rex

Sukha and Rex looking down the cave

CC stays at a safe distance

Ghosty face

It is a short but fun hike...

Wild Goose Chase

Handy, Cutie, Chops and Captain Charlie heartily welcome Wonder Woman and Superman after their long absence. Wonder Woman's hip pain notwithstanding, she is ready to hike again. Chops wears her new shoes to protect her bone spurs injury. The Sunday Hikers are a tough bunch! Peppy and Giggles are still steep into their bike practice for the HOM race in December.

We meet at the Last Command Post, head toward Santa Claus Lane in search of a large cave. Our only clue of finding the trail to the cave is to look for a Blue Ribbon on the left, not far into the Lane. There is supposed to be a second Blue Ribbon a short distance from the first one, on the right side of the Lane. With excited anticipation, we keep our eyes peeled. Six pairs of eyes peer deep into the boonie for any signs of blue. The only blue we are able to see is a blue soda can hanging on a branch. Soon we are near the end of the Lane and no sight of a blue ribbon on either side of the trail.

Meanwhile, we come upon the abandoned farm and decide to take a look-see. There are loads of bananas, papayas, limes, tapioca, and other plants. At the end of the Lane, we all decide to turn back and make another attempt to look for the Blue Ribbon, thinking that perhaps we will able to see it from a different direction. Once again twelve eyes keep a sharp lookout for the illusive ribbon. And once again, no luck. So we give up. With the sound of pounding waves coming from the Cow Town beach, we decide to check it out. And Wow! We are all awed by the giant rolling waves thundering toward the shores and crashing with white, foamy sprays that reach thirty or more feet high. It is so impressive that we just stand around watching waves after waves, and for the first time, we spend no time looking for old glass.

The Cow Town trail takes us to Banzai Cliff where a large number of cliff fishermen are standing perilously close to the edge, fishing for their Sunday meal. Handy, Cutie and CC walk down to check out what they are catching. Most of them have caught nothing yet. It seems like a very risky way to fish. We head back to our car and all agree that despite our failed attempt to find the Blue Ribbon, we have a great hike. Next week, Handy and Cutie are off to their Peru adventure.

Handy getting rid of a rock in his shoe

Cutie's new socks

Giant waves heading to shore

Big crash!

Washing machine

Cutie and Wonder Woman mesmerized

Hillblom's boat

Looking pretty at Banzai Cliff

Fishing at Banzai Cliff

This week's Frankenstein Talk: aigg (egg)