The Road to Toroko

Natalie made it just in time to come with us to Toroko Gorge. It was our first trip with 5 kids so I was glad we had extra hands and we weren't going too far. Last year there were massive land slides a week or two before we were supposed to drive down to Toroko and at the last minute we had to find train tickets. But this year we were able to drive down on our own.

(Stopping in Nanao)

All things considered we made good time and didn't even have to stop that much. There are 8 seats in our van and every one was taken so things were real "friendly" and occasionally a bit unfriendly. Luckily Natalie has endured worse in her life so I never saw her reaching for the door handle to relieve herself of our periodic insanity; but believe me, I was watching for it!

We went through a series of long crazy tunnels which take hours off of the now 4 hour drive. One old tunnel was tall and super narrow, there was little room for error.

The drive is unbelievably gorgeous, I had no idea. It was another stunning day and the views were breathtaking, though so were the sheer cliff drop offs along much of the drive. 

We stopped in a quaint little town, Nanao, for a quick break. It was a lovely little town. Part of the drive is quite windy and since we were in such close quarters and I was taking no chances with chain-reaction-barfing, everyone got Dramamine'ed. Things were nice and quiet for a while there:

(Aly's neck = ouch!)

The closer we got to Toroko National Park the more beautiful it was. The two lane road is narrow and made me a bit nervous since I know landslides have swept buses and cars off and into the ocean before. I tried to focus on the beauty and not worry. It worked some of the time.

At one point traffic came to a stand still right before we entered a tunnel. Everyone was getting out of their cars and walking around. So Nathan, Natalie and I got out and had ourselves a little photo shoot. Supposedly construction was why we were waiting- thought you might want to know since it's always maddening to be stopped and never know why.

It was a good day for a photo shoot. I feel like the background almost looks unreal it's so pretty. But since I have no photoshop skills I assure you, you get what you see, for better or worse!

When we entered into the actual gorge Natalie was dying and having the perfect response you hope from a visitor. She was half hanging out the window trying to capture it with her camera. It's pretty much impossible to get pictures that show how ginormous the gorge walls are, vaulting up higher than you can even see in some spots.
The roads are extremely narrow in some streches and we had to back up a bit for this bus to come through the "two way" tunnel through the mountain.

I'm not usually a fan of driving anywhere stuffed like sardines, and there was that one time we all almost died when Kohen took off his stinky Keens, but otherwise this trip wasn't too bad and thankfully the scenery was perfectly distracting. It was a great start to our weekend gettaway!

(ps- I told ya she was hangin out the window ;)