Mon 9 Nov - Polipoli Park
Awaken by a dawn chorus of twittering birds, we poked our heads out of the tent window, 7 feet off the ground, to watch the Sun slowly illuminating the island as it as it rose above the mountains on to the lowlands. Whilst preparing and eating breakfast, a handful of exercising locals stopped for a chat and gave us recommendations on places to visit, one of which was to continue up beyond the tarmac road on to the 4x4 trail and head for Polipoli Park. After striking camp, we followed this advice and ended up 2500 feet higher in a glade of Eucalyptus trees and penetrating birdsong from brightly coloured birds. The air was much cooler up here, so we set off for a leisurely 6 mile hike through the Redwood Forest. Mist swirled around us and we wandered through various flora and fauna. Not having had enough adventure on this hike we jumped back in the truck and drove up a very rough and steep track (known as the Skyline Trail) through rugged, volcanic terrain to a height of 8000 feet where we were blocked from driving further by a barrier. Undeterred we continued on foot, through rain showers, cloud and sunshine walking up a barren, arid and dusty track until time forced our return. Our plans to get to Haleakala State Park for the night were changed as the drive back down took a very long time doing max. 10mph, so instead we settled on parking up where we had been last night half way down near the Lavender Farm. We quickly cooked up our evening meal, watched the sunset and waited for Sean to come and meet us with dry sleeping bags. We’d left the water cannister lid open and it had leaked all over our ones during the bumpy route today.
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| Yvonne dwarfed by the redwood trees |
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| A passing cloud bank |
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| The dirt road that is the Skyline Trail - 8000ft up |
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