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