Tasmania: Day 6 - Wild Beauty

Theme Songs of the Day:

1. "First Dy of My Life", by Bright Eyes
2. "Burn One Down", by Ben Harper
3. "Are We Different?", by Priscilla Ahn
   

CAMPING ON THE RIVER FLATS

The morning dawns achingly cold on the flood plains of Taylor Flats.

Blue smoke bellows from the still-damp campfire while I stand on the bank of a river, casting into the flow and hoping for a rainbow or a brown trout to strike. The air is still, and my breath hangs around my shoudlers in a puffy veil.

Kookaburras guffaw in the distance while other birds chatter and chirp and whistle all around me. An industrious little fellow tap tap taps at the skeletal tree standing behind me, pulling out grubs and other goodies from the dead wood.

Poplar trees grow thick along the banks to the water’s edge, and I pick my way upstream searching for breaks in the undergrowth large enough for me to cast from. Back at the campfire, butter and home-made raspberry jam bubbles away on the gridle, while bread smokes itself into toast for our breakfast.

Last night we met Roslyn and Oscar, Peter’s wife and youngest son. I spoke with Roslyn on the phone when we landed in Tassie, or rather she spoke to me through the crackling connection: “Is that you Matt??” She is tough as nails, all sinew and no nonsense, with a warm smile and a heart of gold.

Oscar and his brother grew up on the “luxury campgrounds” and were homeschooled by their parents. He is a confident, well-mannered 16-year old, also tough as nails, all sinew, and no-nonsense. He does have his father’s cheeky grin, and the twinkle in in his eye that suggests he may or may not be about to play a practical joke on you…

On the day that the Board of Education came to interview the children to find out how effective [or not] their homeschooling had been, Roslyn was nervous that they might deem their progress sub-par, and take her children away. Instead, the lady that came out was so impressed that she asked if the boys would come and speak to other homeschool families as an example of possibility.

Roslyn explains to me later that their approach was simple: keep the boys engaged and having fun, and they would learn something without even realizing it. For example, to teach them about mathematics and geometry, they built a shed and had them do all the calculations on site that were necessary to complete the project. They learned the theory and application of the concepts being studied, and gained the practical construction skills while swinging their hammers. At 23 years old, Wilbur now travels the world as a freelance adventure guide; he is currently away in Europe leading whitewater kyak adventure tours in Norway over the summer season.

We get to see more of the benefits of this kind of education first hand when we get back to camp and Oscar invites us to join him and his best mate Alex [who is 3 years older] on the downhill Moutain Bike Track that he and his brother Wilbur have built on the other side of the waterfall.

The track is impressive; a narrow trail winds its way down the mountain, earthen embankments allow you to throw the bikes around the switchbacks, and a fallen log provides a massive railslide that drops back onto the track on a steep, twisting ramp. The see-saw feature they fly over freaks me out and sends me careening off into the bush, mowing down a couple of baby eucalypts along the way.

I opt to take the side route on the final stretch, which drops off a rocky outcrop before slipping through a narrow gap in the trees. It took us twenty minutes to hike up to the start, and maybe three minutes to barrell down, hooting and crashing and laughing all the way down. I am thankful that the 15-foot jump they are still building mid-way down is incomplete… and that despite falling off twice, I survived my first downhill mountain biking experience with barely a scratch!

The adrenaline is still coursing when we return to “camp”, and we are still wild-eyed when Peter shows us the yield of hazlenuts that he and Aoba have gathered that morning. The Canadian has asked that we do a bonfire that night, so Roslyn announces that ice cream, molten chocolate, and home-made raspberry sauce will compliment campfire-roasted hazlenuts perfectly for desert.

Before we head out to gather wood for the bonfire, however, Peter invites us on a bushwalk with him to Levyn Canyon. The 45-minute trek up to the lookout point takes about 25 minutes with the pace that he sets for us, and our breath is taken away when we reach the end of the trail. Wooded valleys stretch to the horizon as a river winds its way through. We are ants perched precariously on the edge of this precipice, dwarfed by the massive spectacle of nature engulfing us. The platform and we stand on and polished trail signs behind us are the only sign of human presence; the work of a single park ranger who has carved the trail out with his own two hands, and the occasional help of a laborer or two.

THE RIVER WINDS THROUGH...

Once we regain our breath, we head back to the car which Peter guides deftly around the gravel roads twice as fast as I would be comfortable driving, to bring us to another trailhead. This one descends into the canyon and crosses the river, where we pass a sign reading EXPERIENCED BUSHWALKERS ONLY, and our motley crew - The Moustachioued One, The Canadian, The GreenBackpack, and the Tokyo Girl - pick our way along the steep trail until we round a bend and stop at a natural stone bench which overlooks dark tea-colored pools that eddy and swirl below.

It dawns on me how foreign an experience this must be for Aoba, who has probably only known the bright lights and ceasless racket of big city life... now we are surrounded by a natural symphony, the water rushing below, the breeze whispering through the treetops in waves, birds cackling and whistling and chirping all around.

NATURE'S SKYSCRAPERS

We sit and munch on the chocolates I have brought, drinking in the view from the canyon floor. The cliff face stretches up 100+ stories above, and you can almost hear the cracking and rumbling of the massive rock stratas which lie at a 45 degree angle from the horizontal rocks which are the adjacent cliff. The river does a huge switchback here, and Peter tells us that at some time in the distant geological past, this entire canyon was formed by the collapse of the massive rockforms towering above. If we were ants standing on the top of the canyon, we are gnats as we look up from within.

We return to "camp" with a new sense of quiet satisfaction, our glimpse of the awesome power of Wild Tasmania lingering in our auras. This is Peter's backyard, and I find myself longing to keep exploring, to discover yet more wild spectacles that few privelleged humans will get to experience in their lifetimes. The wild places of the world don't want to be discovered, preferring instead to reveal their secrets only to those intrepid enough to seek and discover...

Dinner is the vegeterian green Japanese curry that I have had bubbling away all afternoon. The homegrown baby yams added at the last minute are pink and translucent and no bigger than my thumb, and lend just the perfect earthy-sweet flavour to this Asian-Australian bush tucker meal we have just invented.

HYPNOTIC

We take turns simmering in the woodfired bath; house rules are that whoever is in the hot tub gets waited upon hand-and-foot, “As you wish…” Everyone outside of the bath house sits and stares into the fire, talking about past and future planned adventures [and misadventures], and even start to sketch out a vague plan to hike in to Cradle Mountain and back from Loongana when I return to Tasmania.

Aoba entertains herself by slicing cross-sections of the bonfire smoke rising into the night sky with her bright green laser beam, whistling Super Mario Brothers to herself and munching on potatoes roasted in the glowing embers. I can only imagine what her internal dialogue would be, 18-years old girl raised in the Tokyo metropolis in the middle of the Tasmanian bush and only enough grasp of English to understand fleeting glimpses in our conversations..

Roslyn and The Canadian have convinced Peter to break out a bottle of homebrew honey mead which has been “cellared” for a couple years. The amber liquid has a velvety texture, not quite as viscous as scotch, yet smooth enough to coat the sides of the glass when swirled. It smells sweet like honey, not the sickly sweet of desert wines, or the artificial sweet of soda pop, but a subtle, delicate sweetness imbued with a hint of citrus… and the taste? Divine. Almost spiritual. If one were lucky enough to sip from the nectar of the gods, than surely this would be it.

Maximus curls up in my lap and drifts off to sleep, twitching and eyelids fluttering as he starts to dream of chasing birds and sticks and severed wallaby heads. The conversation fades and becomes more intermittent, each of us losing ourselves in the hypnotic glow and crackly of the bonfire, connecting with some deep part of ourselves from eons past, when ape-like men huddled around campfires in caves.

Glowing embers float up and away into the milky way yawning above us. I realize that have discovered a formula for inner peace:

Homebrew Honey Mead
+
Vegetarian Japanese Curry
featuring Home-grown Baby Yams
+
Fire-Roasted Hazlenuts on IceCream with Molten Chocolate
and Home-made Raspberry Sauce
+
Woodfired Bath-house
+
Bonfire
+
Awesome People
+
Amazing Conversation
=
Bliss

# # #

BEDFORD'S BACKYARD

RIVER CROSSING

THE CANADIAN


CHILLIN' ON THE STONE BENCH


AOBA [TOKYO GIRL] CONTEMPLATES NATURE


ROASTING HAZLENUTS


BLISS

# # #

break on through...

"WHAT A FRIENDLY LOOKING HOLE.
LET'S GO SEE WHAT LIVES INSIDE!"

Today I went to the other side. Literally. Physically. Metaphysically. Let me explain:

A couple months ago while visiting Olomana Gardens in the foothills of Waimanalo, I followed along with an impromptu group hike and found out about a hidden trail that follows the water flumes which wind through the mountains and provide all the irrigation water for the agriculture in the area. We came across a tunnel about 4" high that disappeared into an almost sheer face of mountainside and was told that if we were to go through it, we would come out to the Lost World on the other side...

WAIMANALO WATER FLUMES

Today I went back. Today I went through the black, and came out on the other side.

We peer into the entrance and can only see blackness 30-40 feet in. The cool water rushing around our ankles gurgles impassively, and my stomach twitches as my mind starts to paint macabre pictures of creatures that lurk in deep, dark places, and of pale gaping faces floating in the night.

FELLOW ADVENTURER AND SOUL-SEARCHER:
LUCIE VOELCKER, THE TRAVELING POET OF GERMANY
AT THE TUNNEL ENTRANCE

Adrenaline kicks in and I can feel the glint in my eye brightening. The Traveling Poet's gaze meets mine, and our glinting eyes smile in agreement that we are actually going to go in.

The 9-LED flashlight, a gift I received only the day before, can only light the way 20 feet ahead before being swallowed by the blackness. It is a strange feeling, knowing that there are tons and tons of dirt, rock, trees, and who knows what else pressing in all around you. It is perhaps an even stranger thing to knowingly descend into these dark places of the earth; once the mind starts chewing on the your fears, the chatter is difficult to stop:

• "What if the light goes out?"
• "What lives in here?"
• "Remember that creature in Star Wars that dragged Luke under the muck in the garbage compacter? I wonder if that thing lives here..."
• "Now I know how Gollum must have felt; no wonder he went insane...."
• "Don't drop the flashlight."
• "What lies ahead?"
• "What was that?!?"
  
• "I don't want to see any faces. Or dead bodies. I don't do dead bodies. Or floating apparitions. No floating apparitions please."
• "What if this doesn't come out on the other side?"
  
• "What was that that just brushed my ankle?!"
• "Don't drop the flashlight!!"
• "DO NOT. DROP. THE FLASHLIGHT."
  

And on and on and on and on.....

On and on we press, losing all sense of time and space, save for what the flashlight can show us for the next twenty feet, the next 30 seconds. The tunnel walls are cold and roughly hewn, and beads of water glisten on the walls like pearls in the gray sky.

The water seems to simply appear out of thin air. The ceiling bears down upon us, seeming to get lower and lower with each step...then it toys with me, opening up every now and then enough to let me stand up straight.

Thankfully, The Traveling Poet starts singing. It is haunting and surreal and macabre and beautiful and strangely comforting all at the same time...

THE SOUND OF PITCH BLACK -
FOR BEST EFFECT, VIEW FULLSCREEN

We pause for a moment and turn off the light. The cool water rushes around my ankles, like busy commuters rushing and gurgling to make their trains. The walls press in around me, and my unseeing eyes blink naievely, desperately groping for light.

There is no difference between keeping my eyes open or closed. Panic rises in my stomach, and I smile broadly to laugh silently and keep the fear at bay.

The screen of my mind and the screen of my retina are one and the same, both inky blank canvases awaiting inspiration and direction...

We press on, the rythym of our sloshing footsteps keeping pace with my quickening heartbeat. I force my mind to stay on the light at the end of the tunnel, though it does not come. On and on into the next 20 feet of darkness we slosh, the water no longer gurgling but relentlessly going the other way, passing silent judgment on the decision to walk against the flow.

My life has become a cliche, and I am loving every minute of it: fear mixed with wonder mixed with anticipation shaken in mountain spring water and pressed by a hundred million tons of sheer-faced mountain...

It is no longer my imagination, the ceiling is getting gradually lower and lower now. Up ahead at the edge of the flashlight, I can make out a different shape, and I cringe....it looks like the roof has caved in, and I don't want to think about the implications of that.

As we get closer, the tunnel turns almost 90 degrees to the left, and what I thought was a cave-in is actually an older tunnel that has since been sealed. The water seems to have quickened its pace and is much louder here, and the cave ceiling keep getting lower.

Now, we are duck-walking, arse-deep in the water, and I am wondering if we will keep going like this until we shrink down and down and down into the size of m&m candies, like Alice in Wonderland, on our way to smoke hookahs with giant existentially philosophic caterpillars...

Up ahead in the distance, I see a simmering light...

It's not the Hotel California, it's the Exit to the Tunnel...and I can breathe deeply again. My thighs are aching from duck-walking the last 100 feet, but it doesn't matter now, I can see the end.

The Travel Poet emerges first, fourty feet ahead of me, and when I finally emerge blinking in the sunlight, a whole new world ... the Lost World ... comes into focus...

We are Sam Neil and Laura Dern, we are the only two humans left on the planet, we are the first two human beings on the planet...we are Adam & Eve. The other side is lush, vibrant green, a living, breathing soundscape of nature...

THE SOUNDS OF NATURE

With newly refreshed eyes and ears, each sight, sound, smell, touch is heightened, and we explore this wilderness we have discovered with childlike wonder, taking our shoes off and squishing through the mud, running up the valley walls and whooping with joy.

As the nature-induced ecstasy fades, we bask in the afterglow and settle back down next to the Exit, out portal back into the world we just escaped. Not ready to return yet, we hunker into our packs and much on organic energy bars and vegan apple cakes given to us that morning by our genius rockclimbing/smoothie-making friend [Badass Harvard Laureate]...and the Traveling Poet strums Martin [her guitar], and bursts into song again...

She is taken by the moment, channeling words and chords and melodies that speak to the moment we are sharing... I sit at her feet and am 6 years old again, close my eyes and am lifted with her voice, swirling with the notes up through the trees... she tells me later that when this happens, it is as if her soul is speaking to her through her own music. I am witnessing a faerie singing her heartsong in the wilderness with my own eyes...

INSPIRATION - CLICK FOR YOUTUBE VIDEO

# # #

...Today, I sat under a mountain, and in the complete absence of light, became a thought.

A bodiless, floating thought. As if the tunnel had collapsed, and my consciousness was ascending through the layers of rock and dirt through the mountain to gain a better view...and in that moment, I experienced peace.

Peace, knowing that if I had indeed died, that I had died while adventuring, doing exactly what I want to be doing - something I love... and absolutely living in the moment.

Peace, knowing that few humans had ever trod into the heart of this mountain...and fewer still had taken the time to stop, turn off their flashlights, and savor the experience.

Peace, melting into the walls of the tunnel, becoming one with the 'aina.

Peace, knowing that the world is what you think it is.

Peace, in communion with nature.

Peace, reconnecting with the source.

Peace.

# # #

Travelog Redux - backpacking New Zealand

STA TRAVEL CENTERS MEAN BACKPACKING TO ME!

Thought I'd post an entry from the Travelog I kept in 2003 while backpacking New Zealand. I booked my flight into Aukland, and nothing else, deciding to figure everything out once I got there..."spontaneous travel", I called it. One of the best trips I have ever done [so far] in my life! No pics, only some images from my sketchbook at the time....enjoy:

9pm, Janus Hall Backpacker's Lodge, Wet All Day

....Waitomo Caves Gloworm Adventure Tour was well worth it, what an adventure!!

30-meter abseil into a hole in the ground starts things off...the hole looks like, well, a hole about 1/2 meter wide an 2 meters down, then you squeeze into the opening and find yourself hanging in a limestone chimney 30m off the cave floor....

...then down a narrow path to a short flying fox run (in the dark), quick break for tea & a biscuit a.k.a. cave cookie a.k.a. NZ Granola Bar...we dangle our feet over the edge of a 10-foot drop and peer into the still, pitch-black water below...can't tell how dep it is (or isn't)....we jump off the cliff into the freezng water below and paddle our way upstream where our guide shows us a chamber full of gloworms & tells us of their lifecycles:

"They are acually maggots of a certain kind of fly, the only maggots known to catch their food by using a light on their arse...only maggots known to trap their food with snot-like fishing lines they dangle to entangle their prey...after living as larvae for many weeks, they pupate into flies which live for three days & shag until they die of exhaustion....they have very short life cycles, but very large penises...what a trade-off, aye?? "

Then, after paddling uptream for about half an hour, we sit on our inner tubes and form a human chain, shut the lights off on our helmets...and float down the stream in the darkness, with only the pale glow of the maggots to light our way.

It is a surreal feeling, drifting downstream in an underground river in total darkness, with 7 other people crazy enough to want to do it with you, and your guide....you lose all sense of space & it feels like you are drifting in the cold vacuum of space; the glow worms look like the stars of distant galaxies....then *SPLASH* our other guide scares the s*%t out of us by making a god-awful noise which breaks the spell and heralds our arrival back to our entry point, where we came in on the flying fox & jumped into the water.

We ditch the inner tubes, turn our lights back on, and follow our guide downstream into the icy black water towards the roar of what sounds like a huge waterfall...we twist & urn & stumble thru a series of rapids, not knowing what lies beneath or where your foot is stepping, just trusting to your numb feet that tey will find the way.

"Watch out for the big eels" they say, and we cannot tell if they are joking or not...although I wonder when they tell us to keep our fingers out of the water lest they be mistaken for earthworms or grubs. Down a slide, we turn a corner & continue downstream, sometimes ankle-deep in water, sometimes chest-deep, sometimes paddling to keep your head afloat as the river bed drops away beneath you.

We pause and our guide points out a few stallegmite formatioins that remind them of different things: T-Rex claw over here, fairy castle over there...then the crown jewell, a formation that looks like a sheep farmer having a little too much fun with his sheep, doggy-style if ya know what I mean...

We press on despite the fact that I can no longer feel my toes, and the cave gets smaller and smaller, pressing in around us. We are crawling our way thru some spaces now, our guides have given us directions and we are now leading the way, the blind leading the blind...

We duck under another low ceiling into another cold pool, and Ritchie, our Maori guide, runs forrward to a nook in the wall and exclaims, "Check this out, it's Cecil!!" "Cecil" turns out to be a 1.5 foot-long eel who resembles a catfish with no eyes, and who is, apparently, asleep.

I am immediately reminded of the "shrieking eels" in [the movie] "The Princess Bride", an also reminded of the earlier warning at our entry point into the caves...yech...10 feet long, they said, 6 inchess in diameter...my skin crawls at the thought of such a creature wrapping itself around my leg, and with a shudder, we move on. Bloody uncanny those creatures, seems like they could live anywhere....their grey skin is unnatural, reminding me of Gollum.

We turn another corner and are given a choice....the easy way out, or do we want our money's worth...nobody objects, so we take the right fork and crawl under a tiny gap in the wall...to emerge under a 10M waterfall. We climb up one at a time, and squeeze through a narrow passageway to come to another waterfall, and...daylight.

It is with mixed feelings that we greet the daylight; sad that our adventure is coming to an end, glad that we are out of the cold...and on our way to hot showers & soup & bagels...what an amazing experience!

Two hours underground with complete strangers, and we emerge with the strange bond a shared experience creates. We know each other pretty well now: there are the 3 Italian guys who don't speak much English but laugh at everything you say...the Smiling Swiss, Felix, who beamed at you every time you looked his way...the Aussie couple, Danielle and her hubbie The Plumber, true-blue Aussies with that "no worries" attitude that meant they were up for anything thrown their way...Sharon, the British girl who teaches English in japan and was petrified the whole way, but who made it thru, foggy glasses and all...and, of course, Bigi [my Austrian travelling companion at the time], who is just...well, Bigi, making friends with everybody, and loving every minute of it.

What a great day!
12/21/2003

WARM AGAIN:
THE VERANDAH GRILL BACK AT THE BACKPACKER'S LODGE

Job Application

I had so much fun shooting this over the last week....er, OK well mostly today...thought the deadline was next week and SUPERMOM came to the rescue again, texting me with the news that the application vid was actually due in TODAY.

So in true procrastination-drives-creative-genius form, I spent the day filming like a maniac with my Couchsurfing Buddy [and new best friend] Lucie Voelcker [THANK YOU Lucie!!]

We spent the day asking unsuspecting tourists and locals to say, "HE WAS BORN FOR THIS JOB!!" into a stranger's video camera....and everyone happily obliged!! I'll follow up with the blooper reel on another post; this was so much fun!!

Of course, Mom thinks that I am a shoe-in for the job [love you Mom]; I thought "Well why not?!" In any case, now that it is out there we'll see what happens, aye??

Special thanks to: Mom & Dad, Lucie Voelcker, Laurens Laudowicz, Miles Burkhart, James Lynch, Jens Trumpa and his beautiful children, Pete Richards, Jim Schmit, Tom who we sail with every Friday [what the heck is ur last name??], Antoinella, Atlantis, Da Kalihi Boyz, that lovely couple from the west coast who we met on Diamond Head, and Morning Brew Cafe in Kailua.

The GR8EST Job In The World - Application Complete!

I had so much fun shooting this over the last week....er, OK well mostly today...thought the deadline was next week and SUPERMOM came to the rescue again, texting me with the news that the application vid was actually due in TODAY.

So in true procrastination-drives-creative-genius form, I spent the day filming like a maniac with my Couchsurfing Buddy [and new best friend] Lucie Voelcker [THANK YOU Lucie!!]

We spent the day asking unsuspecting tourists and locals to say, "HE WAS BORN FOR THIS JOB!!" into a stranger's video camera....and everyone happily obliged!! I'll follow up with the blooper reel on another post; this was so much fun!!

Special thanks to: Mom & Dad, Lucie Voelcker, Laurens Laudowicz, Miles Burkhart, James Lynch, Jens Trumpa and his beautiful children, Pete Richards, Jim Schmit, Tom who we sail with every Friday [what the heck is ur last name??], Antoinella, Atlantis, Da Kalihi Boyz, that lovely couple from the west coast who we met on Diamond Head, and Morning Brew Cafe in Kailua.

North Shore Rock Climbing

WHY DO WE FEEL THE NEED TO CLIMB MOUNTAINS?

An hour's drive from downtown Honolulu and the North Shore opens up before us as we crest the hill past Schofield Army Barracks and wind our way down to Wailua. My buddy Miles and I are on our way to the rock-climbing wall at the end of the road, past Mokuleia and just before Ka'ena Point.

The old sugar mill still stands proudly just outside of the town, and we pass a couple of bikers who have pulled over to the side of the road to get a closer look.

The day is blustery and the swell is building; rain clouds threaten on the horizon but we are determined. It has been over five years since I've been up here, and i am looking forward to meeting my fear of heights again.

We approach Dillingham Airfield and find that a small village of movie-star trailers has cropped up next to the highway; they are filming the hit show "Lost" along this stretch of coastline. This explains the small traffic jam of rental cars up ahead as tourists park by the roadside and clamber to catch a glimpse of their favorite star.

We don't understand what all the fuss is about...I've not owned a TV for 7 years now and have not seen a single episode, while Miles sat next to Matthew Fox at the airport last month wondering why everyone was asking Mr Too-Handsome for his autograph; until his Mom figured out who it was when he told her the story later on...

Movie stars aside: today, we climb.

The security guard asks us if we're going to see any wild pigs back there as we hike past the movie set...we tell him that we'll be sure to bring him back one if any should cross our path. The trail is lush with overgrowth from the recent rains, and I would have walked right past the entrance had Miles not turned abruptly off the road and charged into the underbrush. It feels like we are walking thru the haunted fields of Children of the Corn and I almost eat mud a couple times but luckily keep my footing.

The hike takes about 45 minutes to scale the foothills below the cliffs before we emerge to the climbing site. Our fellow rock-climbing enthusiasts maintain the trail and the 20 or so top-rope climbs on a volunteer basis for all to enjoy. Everything is as I remembered from five years ago, ropes nicely tucked away on sticks that bear the name and difficulty rating of each climb.

We pick our way around a ledge to the warm-up climb Miles has in mind for us today, and the wind picks up ominously. The North Shore stretches away below us, the sound of the rolling surf a mile below crashes its way up the ravines and sounds almost as if the waves are breaking at our feet.

Miles runs me through all the basics of climbing again, and it starts to come back to me...in no time at all he is scaling the first wall, quickly hauling his lanky 6'1" frame up the side of the mountain, and I am belaying him back down as the first drops of rain kiss our faces.

There's no way that we came all the way up here for me not to climb, so I tie in quickly and pick my way to the bottom of the wall. The first segment is fairly simple, a crack with lots of hand-holds that I shimmy up easily enough. It feels good to be on the rock again.

The next segment, though, is a little tricker. The spitting rain has made the smooth rock surface slippery, and there are less hand-holds. Miles had made it look so easy! I breathe deeply and the path reveals itself, one hold at a time.

Three-quarters of the way up now and I make the mistake of looking down. I am maybe only 40 feet above Miles, but we have hiked halfway up the mountain to reach the rockface. My fear of heights knocks the breath out of my lungs as I look down to the ocean 500 feet below, and I start to wonder why I am clinging to the side of this mountain with the wind and rain starting to swirl.

I look to my right and spot a massive crack in the side of the rock face, thru which I can see what looks like another world on the other side...Lost World indeed! A few more deep breaths, and my attention is refocused on the 10 feet of rock face remaining between me and the top of my climb. I shift my weight, close my eyes, and let my hands search the rock for the next hold to bring me up....and in this way, I crawl inch by inch up those last ten feet to make it to the top.

How do you describe the feeling of dangling off the side of a cliff 500 feet up from the ocean laughing in the wind at your fear? You don't - you savor it.

As my feet touch terra firma at the base of the wall, my grin says it all. It is good to be back here.

"DR HOOK" - I THINK...

Decision

ALOHA IN DA WHITE HOUSE

"HAPPY! HAPPY!!

JOY! JOY!!

HAPPY! HAPPY!!

JOY! JOY!!

HAPPY! HAPPY!!

JOY! JOY!!" - Ren & Stimpy

While millions of people around the world tuned in to watch the inauguration preceedings, my buddy Laurens and I retreated to the valleys of Waimanalo to celebrate the new presidency by spending more time with new friends at Olomana Gardens.

We thought it appropriate to take step back to nature and simplicity as the rest of the world held its breath and wept while Barrack Obama, the great Icon of Hope for our generation, was sworn into office.  In celebration of new beginnings, we questioned and further explored new territory in what we want our lives to stand for, and how we want to live.

In doing so, we spent the morning the interns and WWOOFers living on the farm to learn more about organic permacultre and aquaculture, then hiked watertrails in the mountainsides with the group to learn more about the local watershed and water quality issues.

"[Living on a farm] is not how I want to live", Laurens explained to me, "but I LOVE learning new things and connecting with people who are leading the way and using their resources to actually DO what they love to affect change."

Laurens is one of my best friends, the kind of guy who looks at a challenge and simply figures out how to make it work; no whining, no drama.  He is a fellow alumni of HKU...Hard Knocks University.  We've both built our businesses with our bare hands, and little more than our wits + a burning desire to provide as many options as we can for our loved ones.  Money....and lots of it....is important because of the options it affords us; it is the means, not the ends....though in recent times we have found ourselves questioning our definition of "lots"...

In some ways, I feel like I have lost my business so that he doesn't have to lose his...there are mistakes I've made along the way that he doesn't have to make himself since I've crossed them off the list as "things not-to-do."

He is facing his own set of challenges to....as we all are....and I admire the way he looks to make the best of whatever comes his way.  In many ways, he and I are on similar paths, though from the outside our lives look very different: 

He = married, 3 young children, still in business, driving us in his Mercedes.

Me = single, 1 small dog, out of business, driving my uncle's beat-up 1992 Volvo...

...yet each of us questioning and exploring and discovering more and more about himself with each passing day.  Fighting the good fight.  The fight to listen to your own heart's true desire, true purpose.

Henry Ford famously said, "failure is simply the opportunity to start again more intelligently."

So, when President Obama proclaimed, "Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America," I hear it with slightly different ears.

Starting today, I must pick myself up, dust myself off, and begin again the work of remaking myself.

No more laying in bed feeling sorry for myself.  No more avoiding phone calls or old friends reaching out to support and connect with me.  No more hiding.  Time to hold my head high and dive into the work of rebuilding myself....and to start from within.  

This is the part of the movie where the main character gets beaten down by his nemesis, and retreats into the mountains humbled and bloody to lick his wounds.  Thus begins the battle that is fought within, the battle of "Can I really do this?  Am I worthy enough?".....the wandering and the wondering and the soul-searching that goes with it....this is the part of my life I am entering into now.

We have been called to “a new era of responsibility — a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation, and the world, duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character, than giving our all to a difficult task.”

Character.  What am I made of?  Is my desire to travel simply me running away from my challenges?  Or am I on the path of searching and discovery that envisioned by the movie running in my head?  Will I come back?  Will I even leave [I haven't yet bought my tickets...]?

Task.  How do I want to make a difference to our world?  Why am I here.....what do I want my life to stand for, and be about?  What is it that I want to do with my life? 

We emerge from the rainforest into a new world...on the drive home, the dark  clouds of challenges still ahead loomed ominously in the valleys to our right...and rays of sunshine blazed patches of blue sky over the ocean to our left.  The earth itself is whispering to us of what lies ahead.

EACH OF US, STEWARDS OF OUR COMMUNITIES

Judd Trail and Jackass Ginger!

Wow!

I've driven past this trailhead many times while taking the scenic route going over the Pali, and had never gotten around to actually hiking it...

Just 10 minutes' drive from downtown Honolulu (if the traffic gods are smiling), thousands of cars whiz past this piece of paradise every day without a second thought.  

We turn off the Pali Highway to the beautiful Old Pali Road, which winds through lush ginger and ferns, the dappled sunlight streaming through banyan tree canopy.  The homes back here are nestled in the valley, peeking through the vegetation.  I find my future retirement village as we  pass a townhouse development that is perched in the trees, seemingly a part of the forest.  All suburbs should look like this; humans living in harmony with nature...

The hike starts in a eucalyptus grove growing on the banks of Nuuanu Stream, the ducks shaking their tails at us as we get out of the car.  We hop across the small rapids and enter the bamboo forest, which feels like we are walking in a kung-fu movie.  The bamboo is thick and tints the air an eeire green; the bamboo leaves rotting on the forest floor muffling our footsteps like a soggy carpet.

Soon we emerge into the Norfolk Pine forest, which is equally muted, save for the soft background gurgling of the stream.  The pines tower at least 100 feet above, and the sunlight here streams down in piercing shafts rather than the soothing dapple of the banyans. 

We come to the turnoff to the Nuuanu Trail, which heads up the mountainside to the valley ridges, think about following it up, and decide to save it for another day.  Its a 4-hour hike over the mountain to the neighboring Manoa Valley; today we are out for a quick stroll.  

Curious little voices float over the rise, and a Mama Human and her two little 'uns crest the hill, out on a stroll of their own.  Judd Trail is a 45-minute loop with adult legs, and we are impressed with the way these two little billy goats pick their way through the slippery trail!

The trail winds its way back to the river, and we pick our way through the latticework of roots that hold the hillside together down to Jackass Ginger Pool...a swimming hole fed by Nuuanu Stream via a 20 foot waterfall....niiiiice...... No swimming for us today though, the recent rains have made the waters unfriendly, so instead we sit on the rocks above the pool and soak in the sounds, smells, and sights.

*Sigh*....lucky we live Honolulu !!