Braking all the way down.

I would say I was a pretty organised person and every time we go on holiday I take a folder with itineraries, phone numbers, maps and booking references. This holiday was no different except the folder was significantly bigger than previous trips. For a start there were 2 trains,7 flights,3 accommodation bookings, 2 rental cars and numerous other restaurant and trip reservations. Such a folder comes in very handy when you have to get up at ungodly hours and drive through the dark to make it to an early morning activity. Take for example our sunrise bike tour from the top of Haleakala.

We awoke from the warmth of our bed at 3am and drove down to the tour company office to join up for the tour.Smiling and brimming with enthusiasm while everyone else lurked sleepily in the corner,we approached the desk and gave our names. "No" the receptionist said, our names were not on the list. He asked did we have a booking reference with us, heck no, we'd left the folder at the house. He trawled the bookings and announced yes we had a booking but it was made for the NEXT DAY. And the moral of the story is, a folder is all well and good but it's no use unless you check it!

Despite the fact that they were one short of being full to capacity they managed to sqeeze us in and off we set on a great adventure. We piled into the mini buses to get up to Haleakala before sunrise and then we would make our own way down on the bikes. Our bus driver was most informative and plied us with a couple of anecdotes that made me laugh all the way from the bottom of my heart. Here are my favourites.

At the top of Haleakala and just before her 38 mile cycle down a woman approaches the bus driver.
Lady to bus driver - "Do I need to be able to ride a bike to do this?"
Bus driver - Blank stare of disbelief
Lady - "But my husband said I would learn on the way down."
Bus driver - "Lady, I think your husband's trying to kill you."

Haleakula is situated well above the clouds which makes it pretty dramatic but for some it's all a bit too dramatic. On seeing the clouds one woman said " Oh no, we had real bad turbulance on the flight over, there's no way I'm riding my bike through those clouds". Overcome with fear, her bike was taken away and the woman rode down on the minbus. On the way down and through the mist the driver let go of the steering a little bit giving the effect of turbulence. Apparently she had an absolute conniption.

I know you may be a bit skeptical but I firmly believe these stories are 100% true. I don't know what it is about humans but whenever we become tourists we seem to lose all rationality and common sense. When we go on holiday do our brains have a break too?

It was freezing cold but watching the sunrise from Haleakala was really spectacular, Mark Twain said it was "one of the most sublime spectacles ever seen."

At first everything was pitch black and you couldn't see a thing but slowly...

an array of colours appeared.

Little by little the sun popped its head up and over the clouds

and a little bit more...

until this!

It looked like Mars and it was really hard to gauge the distance but apparently it is 2.5 miles from one end of the crater to the other.

We got our bikes from the van and took a leisurely few hours to make our way down to the coast, stopping to take in the views, have a picnic breakfast and check our map. I say leisurely because I was a bit cautious of some of the 66 switchbacks and I braked practically the whole way down. This caused a bit of cramp in the hands but there was no way I was wiping out. After a few hours I asked Martin when the rest of the hills were coming up but he said it didn't matter as we appear to be going up the hills faster than coming down them due to my cautiousness!

Not a flattering photo I know but Martin thinks it best illustrates the lack of speed and constant braking. Anyway, you have to wear the helmet so we both looked like dorks together.

After a wonderful trip we safely returned to base and were happily told by the receptionist that we were the last ones back, not that he wanted to make us feel slow or anything. Poor Martin, I'm sure he would have been finished in no time but he happily stayed with me. In the afternoon we gave our hands a rest and had a lovely time browsing the boutiques and galleries in the wonderfully artsy town of Paia.

Cheers from the speed demon until the next post.x