Secret beaches

In the last couple of days, we have made excursions to a couple of slightly less accessible beaches (in lieu of actual hiking, for which there was the will but not really the way, given Eliot's impatience with the backpack and the muddy trails). Secret Beach, near our place, is down a rather vertical mud slope that was too difficult for the whole family last week and necessitated a second attempt with a reduced group of the abler-bodied. Blaise finally got to jump in the surf, Dad made use of his bodysurfing skills (you can take the boy out of Bondi, but..) and Anselm explored some seacaves.

Yesterday was the sad departure of Mum and Dad back to Australia. They are already much missed.

After seeing them off at the airport, we took advantage of the sacked-out state of our small passengers to go south again-- first a stop at Hamura's Saimin and then on to the lithified sand cliffs of the Maha'ulepa coast. A hairy road took us most of the way to Gillin's Beach, near the Hyatt but somehow a million miles away. It's wild and windswept, backed by an impressive rocky peak, and has one house whose singularity oddly highlights rather than destroys the isolation. We walked along the cliffs toward Shipwreck Beach, then turned back to get to the end of Gillin's for a view over the rest of this dramatic piece of coastline.

At dinner Eliot adopted the silver-haired proprietress into the family, calling her "Grandma!" and keeping up a conversation with her over the entire meal.