Day 5 of the Hawaiian Adventure

Hawaii Trip: Intro / Arrival / Day 1 / Day 1 ( pt 2) / Day 2 Early / Day 2 / Day 3 / Day 4 / Day 5 / Day 6 / Day 7 / Wrap-up

Today was the wettest, messiest, and one of the most fun days of the trip. Twelve people from our agency signed up for an ATV tour of the Koloa area, including trips through the old sugar cane plantations and up in the hills outside of town. This is the area where we rode:

Eight of them rode ATV's, and four of us rode what they call "mud buggies". The Mrs. and I chose to ride together in a mud buggy and it was great fun. Here's the before shot:

The ATV company's slogan is "Do Something Dirty", and they're not kidding. Right after this shot was taken, it started to rain, so we put on our trashbag/raincoats for the trip. You'll notice that we're all clean and dry. That was before this:

and this:
There are no fenders on these buggies, so when you hit water and mud at 25 miles per hour, you get drenched in all kinds of guck. Every square inch of us was covered in mud by the end of the trip. It was a real challenge to drive in those conditions, because although we had goggles, the goggles kept getting coated in mud, so we had a grimy cloth to use to wipe the goggles with one hand as I drove with the other as we flew along these dirt and mud trails.

One of the neat areas we road through was this 1/2 mile tunnel cut through the hill, originally used for transporting sugar cane to the sugar mill. It was raining cats and dogs when we came through there.
At one point shortly after we left the tunnel, we headed up into the hills on some rather steep muddy trails, and thought our trip might come to an early end. The trail was full of mud and water was running down the hill from the still falling rain. The buggy started to spin out and we ended up in a position where the car wheels were spinning and we couldn't get any grip to get up the hill. Fortunately, with a little care and outstanding driving (if I say so myself), we were finally able to find enough traction to continue. Going down the steep grade on the other side was also tricky as the car was in a constant side-slip and we slid down the hill.

By the end of the trip, we were soaked through, covered in mud, and looked like this:
We'll be scrubbing mud out of our bods for days to come, but boy, it was fun! Although it was a mess, I'm glad it rained because we got the full ATV experience.

Tomorrow we're going to head up to Kauai's version of the Grand Canyon, and then in the evening we'll be attending a traditional Hawaiian Luau and Show. Should be fun!