Hawaii Trip Day 4

Day 4 - Thursday December 9th
Miles - 57.7
Climb - 2523

Today started out a little cool. It was a beautiful morning though. Once on the main road we ran into an elevation sign and had to stop for a pic.

That was the top of the hill and for the next 28 or so miles it was all downhill. Nick promised us that the uphill at the end of the ride today wasn't too bad. So we had a nice little pace line going downhill to lunch. We rotated riders about every 3 miles or so. I had started out towards the back and by the time I got up to the front to pull, it was only 9 miles to our next stop at a little coffee place. I was feeling really good so I decided I was going to pull us all the way to that stop. It was one of those rides where everything just clicks. My legs felt fresh, my mind was clear and all I wanted to do was get into a low hear and just crank! And that's exactly what I did. Upon arrival at the coffee place a couple people mentioned that they had to break going uphill. I'm not a big guy but I'm big for a biker and apparently I create a nice little wind block. It was a great ride.

Here's us at the self serve coffee & macadamia nut sampling.

These are coffee cherries.

And this is inside the couples home that owns the Kau Coffee plantation there. She was bagging up fresh beans for us to take home. It was a lovely little place with a phenomenal view of the ocean. And she was a very interesting lady. Definitely drank a TON of coffee! She sells it online and will ship to the US also if you are interested. It was delicious!

After our stop at the coffee place it was on to our lunch stop. It was only another 6 or so miles. We were headed to a black sand beach for lunch. When we arrived it was absolutely breathtaking. This was the first time I'd ever seen black sand. It was awesome!

After lunch we started our climb that Nick had said was no big deal. Maybe one long hill. Well the one long hill was in fact an 11 mile long, category 2 climb (there are only 2 levels above it). It seemed to be the never ending climb! But we all made it through and arrived in one piece at our bed and breakfast for the evening.

The B&B was pretty cool. There was plenty of space and some really cool open areas. This whole patio area was covered and screened in.

Later that day we ventured out to South Point, the southern most point in the United States. We also attempted to find a green sand beach but it was too far of a walk to make before dark. Darrell and Chris and I just threw rocks into the ocean for an hour while the rest of the group tried to make it.

This is South Point. If we had made it there before dark you could actually cliff jump off of these 40'+ cliffs. There was an old rusty ladder that you would climb up from the water and it just looked like to much fun for me to pass up climbing down it. I discovered a cool cave at the bottom, and that it was a little nerve racking being on an old rickety ladder above the water.