The Tapochau Road has recently been graded for the Good Friday walk, so it is nice and even for now. We are happy not to have to fight the usual rocky and uneven roadway, making our early morning hike much more pleasant. Chops, Cutie, and Ewok all have hiking poles, CB decides to go without.
From Tapochau Road, we veer left onto Aiken's Lane, and muddy trail. Faced with a muddy puddle, Cutie and Ewok choose to negotiate the left bank, while CB tries out a new trail around the puddle.
As we take two more left turns, and begin to roll down hill, the view suddenly opens onto Lau Lau Bay and Naftan point. The Sound of Music is within sight. This is always a "Wow!" moment for us.
From another angle, we see Kagman homestead, and Tinian Island in the distance across the channel.
Ewok, Cutie, and Chops cruising through Sound of Music. The morning sun casts a golden hue onto the wind swept field of grass. The airstrip shows clearly in Naftan.
A lone ironwood tree grows on top of a rock.
Cutie follows the meandering bike trail carved out of the grassy field used by the XTerra racers. With the winding and rocky surface, even walking on the trail takes great caution. It is meant to be a challenge for the bikers.
The grass is tall here, CB gets ready to enter the narrow trail.
An unusual four-legged spider!
After the winding trail, and a small forest, we come to the second savanna of a field of silvery grass glistening in the sun. This is our stopping point for rest and snacks. CB takes photo of CC taking photo of the field.
With not a soul in sight, we find a rare shady spot and spread out the picnic cloth and all the goodies. We load up on the goodies to be ready for the tough second half of the hike.
As expected, the road onto Waserak Drive is muddy, slippery and deeply gouged by the giant ATVs that make the road impassable. We manage to avoid falling into the mud holes.
Speaking of the giant ATV, we run right into this one stalled and stranded in the middle of the road, blocking traffic. Ewok climbs into the cab to check it out. This is the second giant stranded ATV we have run into. The last one, about a year ago, stalled in the same area. Judging from the size of the vehicle and the tires, one can see how they can easily gouged out the dirt road. We decide to have our official group photo taken here.
Ewok shows the company name and logo, and its website.
One of our favorite bamboo forests. Ewok charges ahead, and Chops poses for photo op. Notice the blue arrow marking for the XTerra race.
We make a brief stop at the shrine-like rock formation.
More muddy trail with CB doing a "help!" dance. Fortunately Chops is able to use her super air-ray power to keep CB on dry land...
This abandoned government van has been here for more than three years! We have watched it from three years ago when it was "newly" abandoned with windows and doors intact, to now where all the windows have been broken and the interior trashed out.
An unusual looking trunk of a palm tree.
Having conquered the last of the big puddles on the way back, CB and Chops stop to examine more trees and shrubs.
From Chop's plant encyclopedia, this is the name of the flower: Solanum, the plant can be a shrub or a small tree and the flowers come in a variety of colors, and the berries likewise can come in different colors.
Another variety of a pandanus fruit called Pahong, according to CB. This variety is round.
Two happy hikers taking a selfie.
This is one of our favorite hikes, and today it takes us a much shorter time than usual even though we take our time to enjoy a fairly leisurely hike. Total time is only 3.5 hours for this 6 mile hike. Five sneakers...
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