Mountain Biking
From Okat to Utwe, the main road runs clockwise around the beautiful, jungle lined coast of the island. You will pass through villages, meet friendly natives, admire the Sleeping Lady and relax beneath palms near the Ocean’s clear water..
Driving
Endemic trees and an undeveloped interior ensure Kosrae is one of the least traversed islands of Micronesia. An exciting drive in a four wheel vehicle will let you explore the island jungle and admire superb panoramic views of the coast and cool waterfalls. One of the spectacular unpaved roads will lead you to Walung. People of this most remote village of Kosrae go about their daily lives without cars or electricity.
Follow the road to Walung
Walung means “hinterland, away from Leluh” and it is the island’s most traditional village. For now it’s a quite place and just few visitors have the privilege to visit it. A drive or bike ride to Walung begins at Utwe, on an unpaved road, passing through the most pristine jungle in all the Pacific.
Walung is isolated. there is no electricity, no stores, and the residents like it that way. Walking or biking over the big bridge, and passing inside the mangrove forests which line the coast, you’ll arrive at Kosrae’s most beautiful sandy beach. Walung is famous for the longest, uninhabited beach on the Island, a heaven for terns.
The village is surrounded by large compounds, which archaeologists call the “Fortress of Solitude”. There is no oral history to cover the site. This Fortress doesn’t appear in texts or oral histories recorded today. This may suggest the Fortress is from a distant and remote time, long abandoned and forgotten before it could be relayed to the earliest explorers who set foot on the island.
Without electricity in Walung, locals cook over wood fires.
Most cooking takes place over a grill in the kitchen. Typical is an umm: foods (breadfruit predominant) are wrapped in banana leaves and set on heated stones.The foods cooks for a few hours, get covered with more banana leaves and are left to stew in the juices. Drinking water is from a rain catchment system.
Most of Walung people make a living by catching fish and selling bananas and other goods grown on the land. Fish and fruit are taken by canoe to markets in Utwe or Tafunsak, a trip that will last quite some time.