November 22, 2014
Day 6: Punaluu Beach Park to Volcano Park
Well, we made it 4000 feet up here, but just! The road climbed quite steeply for the first half, and then more gently, but it always climbed. There was no need of brakes at any point - very economical!
We left early and so passed the last town, Pahala, before anything was open. This was no problem for water, because we had dragged a full load up from the beach. On the other hand, we had only minimal snacks on hand, and would have paid $10 for a Snickers by the end!
We did have a bag of (organic, shelled) macadamia nuts, two tootsie roll pops, four rambutans, and our planned lunch of a can of cat food like chicken preparation, with crackers. We supplemented this with a few more macadamias, as we passed by an orchard and found them lying by the road. Just as with pecans, the husks had already popped open. So all we had to do was extract the hard nut and whack it with a lump of lava.
What really helped, though, were the guavas. We found lots of trees by the road, and a fair number of ripe, yellow fruits. At first we were cutting them in half and scooping out the pulp to eat. But we soon found that with a ripe one you can just eat the whole thing.
Though the temperature was well over 40 degrees in the first part of the day, it did not give us a problem. We attribute a lot of that to our new DaBrim visors. Even our smaller models kept us under all kinds of shade. This, plus having lots of water, really did the trick.
With food though, in the last half of the day, I mentally enjoyed preparing all my favourite dishes, starting of course with Egg McBagel, but moving on to pancakes with maple syrup, wood oven pizza, weiner schnitzel, and finally a complete Thanksgiving dinner. Sitting now at the campsite, some noodles are boiling up. I am sure that when they are finally ready, it will be as great as all the above mentioned mythical feasts!
As predicted , the upward climb was very hard on Dodie's knees. She showed a lot of courage to keep going, whether cranking or pushing, for the long time it took to get here. She will pay for it, trying to lie down tonight, but once you are out there, there really is little alternative but to keep on going.
We are too beat to set up the tent right now, so we are just going to crash in yet another large shelter with picnic tables. The people around us seem, frankly, like a higher grade of individual - more like hikers than beach transients or partiers.
Though it was super hot earlier, here on the mountain, as expected, it is pretty cool - though not really freezing. With not putting up the tent we will have to put on all our fairly meagre warm stuff. It should be ok.
As for photos, I will soon post a few. But unlike most roads or places you could choose in Hawaii, today's stretch was quite undistinguished. Have a look soon, and you'll see...
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Today's ride: 42 km (26 miles)
Total: 168 km (104 miles)
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