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| An overlook of the Wailua River -- where we were kayaking on day four to reach "Secret Falls". |
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A view over the "fern grotto"... |
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| Opaekaa Falls -- there's apparently a way to work your way from the viewing area to the falls despite the lack of a trail
-- but I didn't want to try on my own... that's okay, I found plenty of trouble later. |
So I followed a dirt road heading into the interior of the island and managed to take the right combination of forks to end up as close as you can get to the Waialeale Crater by truck -- didn't know that at the time (no map!). |
It seemed like it had to be the crater anyway due to the constant stream of helicopters making the rounds -- I got to verify that on my own flight two days later. |
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| Well, I couldn't just stop at the end of the road -- so close to the open crater! So... I found and started following this "trail" -- well, more or less a trail... |
Some serious bushwacking... |
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| Nice views in a couple of places... |
Mmmm.... plenty of mud... |
Getting deep... |
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| The center of the island (some miles from here) is supposed to be wettest place on the planet (440 inches/year) -- I certainly wasn't keeping dry. |
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| Oh my! |
Excellent! Except... I soon discovered that I managed to go almost full circle back to where I had parked. Doh! |
Okay, so back up the way I came down! See it's still a trail... it's visible, right?! |
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| Well, okay so it became mostly a creek... |
Ooooo, and the sun came out! |
Well, this is as close as I got, which probably wasn't very far from where I parked-- it was slow going, but fun! But I had to start back before I ran out of light. |
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| Guess who found a most excellent mud pit? And this is *after* cleaning up! |
Oh but I eventually really lost the "trail" completely -- I spent a whole lot of time swearing and backtracking and buchwacking in different directions -- it was getting dark and I couldn't see any landmarks in the thick of it... |
But these last two photos were taken in celebration of finding the way out again -- would have been a *long* night otherwise! |