The Balete Tree ride ; The Oldest Tree - Canlaon - Negros Oriental - Philippines

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This was actually a ride from Cebu, across the Tañon Strait to Negros Oriental and up near the top of Mt. Kanlaon volcano, but my kodak Playsport video camera quit working at the Balete tree so the report stops at this 1328 yr old tree. The camera started worked again after the battery was exhausted and recharged when back at the home 10-20 ... so I'm not sure what happened with this hardware ...

The Balete Tree (known as Lunok in the Visayan dialect and Dalakit in Cebuano), is right along the way to the volcano (Mt. Kanlaon), so it was very appropriate to ride over ... No signs along the way so finding the tree was a slight challenge ... It's just growing out in the middle of a big farming area... Very isolated to say the least ...

I have a new riding buddy (that will be his blue bike in the photos) and we are expanding the bike touring business we have here to include multiple islands. This was our first trail mapping off the island of Cebu (about 300 miles round trip this time) ... Next week ...we cover 4-5 more islands in a loop ride up to Manila area and back ..

The 08 TXC250 Husky ... I strapped a tool bag on back, greased all bearings, cleaned the air filter, changed the engine oil, added the trail tech light back on the front, put on a nearly new IRC - VE33 rear knobby, and was ready for Negros ...


This is the ECO Adventure Park in the Danasan area ... Its right along the way mid-way across the island of Cebu and a good stopping point ... That is a zip-line wake board water hole in the distance and those hills may very well have some sort of dirt bike track in the near future ...



First river crossing ... We usually get a local guy to show us the best place to cross and the depth of the water ...


The 08 TXC250 Husky after the crossing ... I'm not big on river crossings but they will wash your bike well ..


A view of the river looking back to where we came from ...

 

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Another view of the river and valley from a higher altitude ...


We arrive at Toledo Port for crossing the Tañon Strait..


This looked really odd seeing the small down pour of rain to the right side of the photo ... That little dot in front of the rain is the ship/barge that we are waiting to arrive and take us over to Negros ...


This is pretty much the same area (as shown by the mountain to the left side) just a little time later ...

My bike on the ship ...

 

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This was the first place we stayed in San Carlos


Waddy's Place was just up the mountain side towards the volanco ... It was just too cool ..




The view from Waddys Place back east towards Cebu .. That is San Carlos in the upper left and Cebu in the distance ...


Another small creek crossing along the way to the Balete tree...

 

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A bamboo bridge for crossing when the water rises too much ...


A view of the road and countryside heading to the big tree area..


Next small river to cross ...




Again, a local guy shows us the way across the creek

 

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Canlaon area ... this is some sort of agricultural training center ...


The Balete tree ...



My rider friend used for sizing the tree... He's like 6'4, 230 or so ...


Here is the view looking from the tree back towards the way we rode up ... No parking fees or anything else to commercialize the AO.
That closest sign there says no motorcycles allowed in there ... There were a few locals watching of course, but over all, you discipline yourself on your actions here .. this is pretty much the default way of most places out in the providences ...


Out there in that fog \ low clouds is the volcano ....

 

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My 08 TXC250 Husky at the 1,328 year old Balete Tree (known as Lunok in the Visayan dialect and Dalakit in Cebuano) that stands amid the rice and coffee plantations of OISCA Farm in Lumabao, Canlaon City. The oldest recorded tree in the province and perhaps even in the country, this tree has been a lone witness to Canlaon City’s progress and evolution.

Today they call it the “wonder balete” because of the mystery that hovers around its existence and why it has been isolated from all the other Balete trees as if picked out and planted on just this one specific spot. Every night, curious travelers could not help but gaze in awe at a now-illuminated tree – the doing of many hundreds of fireflies that have come to take refuge in its wide and sturdy branches. Thus, another title – Canlaon’s all year round Christmas tree. From a distance, the tree would look somehow enchanted.

At the heart of this wide tree trunk is an alcove where lizards, bats and many insects have made it into their natural habitat.

The playsport quit here and we continued on to the volcano ... It was some very cool ST riding up here ...

 

[ioneater]

Very distinctive tree for sure! It reminds me of the "home" tree in the Avatar movie. Looks like an awesome area to ride and smell the roses.

 

[Muddy Waters]

That tree is incredibly cool, nice ride to get to it too
Love the downpour picture

 

[ray_ray]

Very distinctive tree for sure! It reminds me of the "home" tree in the Avatar movie. Looks like an awesome area to ride and smell the roses.

Yes and awesome is the norm for the entire country apparently ... I'm seeing that the local communities will get the GOV to drive a dozer across some mountain road for a specific reason that they have ... then after ~3 months the road is in bad shape and after ~6 months it looks like ST again ...

Tree looks very climbable as you can see in the first pic below ...I'd guess kids have been up on it many many times of the life of the tree.

Its hard to get the ST pics sometimes because we just push across the areas .... Here's a couple pics below my buddy got from up on the mountain ... All the trails we saw so far were very ride-able and not really dangerous ... Not that we saw alot them ...

There is also a beach shot below of a small cove we found waiting for the ship to arrive before the ride back over to Cebu ...

The last pic is of a MX track they are re-working over there iin San Carlos ... We rolled back off the mountain and got stranded there due to a typhoon ... Then we found out a friend of mine, Pepo Rubi, was there to re-design the track so we rode over and I had to make a few laps even though it was very muddy ...

 

[ray_ray]

That tree is incredibly cool, nice ride to get to it too
Love the downpour picture

I thought it was a water spout or tornado or something out there at first ... It looks like the rain is generating from out of the air and not really from a cloud ...

 

[WHITEROCKET5.9]

gnarly tree, looks like its made of all roots or something

 

[ray_ray]

gnarly tree, looks like its made of all roots or something

It does look weird ... Each side is a little different looking ...

 

[JasonfromMN]

Crazy cool adventure and what a tree!