Topside Molokai

I was lucky to be able to take a very last minute trip to Molokai back in May. While the primary reason I wanted to visit Molokai was to visit Kalaupapa, I was also able to visit pretty much the entire rest of the island while I was there. Molokai is the 5th largest of the main Hawaiian islands and has only 8,000 residents.
The day I arrived I drove out to the far end of the island to Halawa Valley. The drive was awesome- I think I passed two cars on my entire trip out and back. The views of the coast and of the interior of the island were beautiful, although sight distance was very limited due to the heavy vog (volcanic gas for the mainlanders) and the pictures from that day came out quite hazy. I hiked around out there for a while even though there aren't really any trails. I bushwhacked my way through brush and grass over my head at one point to climb out on a point over the bay- turned out not to be quite as great a view as I thought it would be and not worth all the effort to get out there. Plus, the plant litter was so thick that you had no idea where the ground was or what was down there (thankfully, nothing really scary came out).
Later that afternoon I returned to Kaunakakai (the main town) and checked into my hotel. A Marriott this was not! No AC, but at least they did have an option to purchase high speed internet access (critical since I had school work to do while I was there). I also managed to secure a room with a double bed after protesting at the desk that a twin bed where the headboard was slanted inwards quite steeply due to walls being slanted inwards was simply not long enough. Kaunakakai, being the metropolis that it is, had about 3 places to eat so I tried out the Pizza place that night.
My second day I rode the mules down to Kalaupapa (see below for more about that).
The third day I hiked out to visit the Phallic Rock. Yes, you guessed it, there is a Hawaiian fertility legend to go with it. Pictures are below, not much more to say about that. I hiked around in the forest there for a while until my trail turned into a goat track (lots of wild goats on the island) and became impossible to follow. After that I drove out to Papohaku Beach on the opposite end of the island from Halawa Valley. The beach is 3 miles long making it one of the longest in Hawaii. It is also very wide, which is also fairly unusual out here. I was very surprised to find that on a Holiday Weekend in the middle of the day, I was the only person out there. It made me feel like I was on a deserted island to see so much sand and no people.
By my last day I had seen all of the island that you are allowed to see in a rental car, so I drove around again, went out to the wharf for a while, walked through town again (yep- that took a long time since it's one block long!), then caught my flight home. It was an excellent trip, and I was very glad I finally got to visit Kalaupapa.