Hawaii Vaca, Post 12 - Big Island Helicopter Tour, Pt 2

So kids, we find ourselves in part II of our most excellent helicopter adventure.  This is the post where some of the folks aboard the lovely aircraft started to feel, uh...  not so lovely.  That's a few pics away though yet, and we have some other terrain to look at that is, in my humble opinion, quite fantastic!

I love this shot as it's quite indicative of the dichotomy of the terrain you see while flying/slash driving around the Big Island.

More "puzzle piece" edges of the same!

A lot of the nearest dark spots in this pic are due to the spacious clouds above our 'copter.  I took the picture though because I was fascinated again on where we humans will choose to build a road on which to live.

This shot and the next are nearly the same, with the next one taken on a minute or so after the first.

The top of the volcano (Mauna Kea, I believe) in the background with lots of "seas of broccoli" in the foreground.  I found myself spacing off at one point looking out the window, and said to my same self, "I didn't know that they grew so much broccoli here in Hawaii!",  before realizing that I'm a dork and I'm looking at the tops of trees.   Yes, I just revealed that about myself...

That is some type of animal down there...   I not see nor smell them so lets just assume that they're cows.

Here, we're looking at the town of Paauilo.

This is Pu'u'ala farms, which still doesn't explain this, but it looks like natural fencing.

Ooooh boy!  Here's where the vomiting starts!  We got to the area that, I believe is called, "7 Gorges".  I think it's because there are more than 6 gorges and less than 8, but it was nearly impossible to count at the time.  No matter, it was absolutely beautiful!!!

The pilot did a few twists and turns around the opening to this lovely valley.   And after that, we flew into the valley!

A nice look back from where we came from as we're entering the valley.

A REALLY, REALLY tight little canyon.  Even tho there are no snakes in Hawaii, I still would NOT want to be caught in this canyon!

These were cool.  I'm not sure what they were called but the double waterfalls where the water has created a pooling up about halfway down the ridge, then overflows that into another waterfall.  Stunning!

Our pilot flew us right in to the edge of his favorite double waterfall, so close that we inexperienced peeps were afraid that the rotors atop the helicopter were going to hit the foliage on the side of the mountain, get tangled up and send us down the side of the mountain in a flaming heap.  That didn't happen.

This was one of the pilots favorite areas on the island.  So what did he do?  He flew up to the edge of the ridge, so close that I thought our rotor would hit the vegetation.  Then he "floated" backwards, down and sideways a bit to turn around to begin our trip back out of the valley.  That little turnaround move proved too much for the female newlywed on our trip.  This is where she reached for the first vomit bag...

Pic of a stream on our way back out...  if that wasn't fairly obvious.

This was in the second valley we entered.

Amazing!

Beautiful!

We're beginning to leave the gorges at this point.

I could spend ALL DAY here!

Or here!

This is the point that I snapped the picture when the male newlywed radioed the pilot to tell of the distress that the female newlywed was in...  it started to smell bad here too.

The last of the valleys before we ascended over one of these ridges and entered what appeared to be flat grasslands for ranching.  Who knew?!?

That does it for part II of the helio tour.