Maui

We took a little puddle-jumper over to Maui, our last island, on Friday morning.  Just a 9 seat prop-plane and we had our requisite exciting moment of a sudden drop in altitude, but that was far out-weighed by mom's squeals of joy of seeing several whales cruisin' in the waters below us.

Mom twisted my arm into renting a convertible so we piled into a Jeep Wrangler (good thing we're traveling carry- on!) and set out for West Maui.  We're staying in the Kaanapali area at another hotel/timeshare complex.  Our roomy studio comes with a full kitchen, and lush tropical garden view.  As expected, our room wasn't ready till 3pm so we had lunch at Whaler's Village, then sat suntanning by the pool with dulcet tones of the shuffleboard tourney serenading us in the background.

The next morning we were up and out pre-coffee for the short drive north to check out the Napili Kai resort, where my parents used to stay years ago.  The hotel was in good nick but Sheila was stunned at all the new developments that have popped up the the intervening 40 years since her last visit: NK used to be at the end of the road, now the pineapple plantation has given way to a dozen resorts and a golf course!

We returned 'home' to prep for the day, put the top down on our Jeep and headed south.  We drove down to Kihei; first to check out where our friend Ann stays when she visits every April, and the further south to have lunch at the Grand Wailea Resort, where we all wish we could stay when we visit :). It was all very posh and elegant, from the lei greeting to the tiny bottles of chilled water left in our valet-parked car.  It was also huge!  We had to ask for directions twice to find the poolside bistro.  Service was top-notch - they didn't even bat an eye when mom ordered a grilled cheese sandwich to go with her fancy wine for lunch!

We had to hurry back as we had booked a sunset cruise out of Lahaina harbour. Plenty of drinks, fancy pupus, beautiful sunset and over 350 pictures of whales.  Need I say more?

Sunday, our day of rest, saw us up at 5:45am and on our way to Hana.  The famous road is not for the faint- of-heart (or queasy stomach) as it has over 600 curves in 50 miles (one way!).  We were amply prepared with a full tank of gas and a picnic lunch but the weather did disappoint - light rain fell for most of the journey.  We were consoled with the roadside waterfalls we did see, knowing we had already seen some spectacular ones earlier on our trip, and navigating the road was a lot of fun (Sheila did a spectacular job!).

 The rain stayed over on the wet side of the island so we piled (literally after 12 days of vay-cay!) into our swimsuits and spent our last afternoon at the beach. And we actually went for a swim !!

Thanks, Allison
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Big Island

Island #3!  The Big Island!!  And at more than 2x the size of all the other islands combined it certainly is huge, so we decided to conserve some driving time and fly into Hilo on the eastside and fly out of Kona on the west, 3 days later.

Hilo once had dreams of being the major entry point to the islands but those faded away long ago and is now a sleepy little town that has seen better days but looks to be trying really hard to stay with the times.  We stocked up on our essentials, then drove north first to explore the coastal rainforest and the spectacular Akaka Falls.

Turning south, we drove back thru Hilo and down to the southeast corner of the island and the famous black sand beaches of the Puna coast. From lush to lava, the extremes in the environment in just a few miles was amazing.  We had to pull over and snap some pictures the first time we came across a volcanic field, unaware that almost all of what we would see of the island would in fact be this hard black rock.

At Ahalanui Beach Park we were mightily tempted to take a dip in the spring-fed thermal pool but we had many miles to cover that day.

We drove west along the coast, stopping at several beaches to watch the crashing waves and courageous surfers, until we could drive no more.  In 1983 a huge flow of lava devoured the land, towns, houses, and road on its way to the ocean and the Black Sand beach of Kalapana is now beneath 60' of hard rock!  The ocean is now a 1/4 mile walk out across the lava to the water's edge and the new little sand beaches that are just forming.

We left the coast to spend the night (and the next) up at 4000' in the town of Volcano. The tiny village had several little restaurants, guest houses and a couple of general stores to service Volcano National Park which was just down the road.

We spent all of Day Two in the Park, marveling at the steam vents that offered free facials if you could get close enough, fantastic views of several volcanic craters, and The Chain of Craters road which descended thru the various lava fields to the ocean below.

We hiked the Kilauea Iki Trail, a 4-mile trek along the rim of a crater, descending 400' through a rainforest of Jurrassic Park-style tree ferns, to stumble across the hardened moonscape of the caldera to the other side and up again to the top.

We spent the rainy afternoon snug in room in the main building of the Hale Ohia B&B, a 1932 Queen Anne-style building complete with a turret and bay window, sipping wine and waiting until it was time to dine.

We had hoped to return to the National Park after dinner for a nighttime viewing of the Halema'uma'u Crater but the mist was so thick we could barely see beyond our car's headlights, so off to bed it was.  Then I woke up at 1am, and was completely awake.  Staring at the ceiling for a while I realized that the rain had stopped and it was actually quite clear outside.  Mom woke up too and after a few minutes of thought she agreed to get up and sneak out for a midnight peek at the Crater.  The Park is open 24/7 but the entrance gate was unmanned at that time and so we 'proceeded' as per the sign in the window.  It was only after we arrived at the Jaggar Museum at the Crater's viewpoint did we find out cars weren't allowed in after 8pm - oops!  But the show was magnificient!  What was merely a plume of smoke during the day was transformed into a rich red glowing tower of steam as the molten lava, hidden by the crater's edge, lit up in the darkness of night.  We could see it quite clearly but unfortunately my camera couldn't capture it well at all.

For our last day on the Big Island we drove west, past Ka Lae, the southern most point in America and all the signs: Southern-most Bakery, Southern-most Bar, Southern-most gast station, etc., and around and north up the Kona coast to the Kohala region.  This is where the Ironman Triathalon is held and the highway is gentle, superwide and links huge swathes of desolate lava fields with super lush pockets of coastal resorts.  We stopped at the Mauna Lani resort to walk the Malama Petrogylph Trail - a .5 mile walk through dense, twisted, stunted trees to a flat boulder field covered with 1000's of rock carvings.  Not much is known about the petrogylphs or why they were carved but it was quite a sight to see.

We finished the afternoon at the adjacent beach watching whales breach just offshore, hardy surfers tackle the rough waves close to shore, and the sun slowly set in the distance.

Thanks, Allison
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Kauai

view from our hotel

We arrived at our hotel about 12pm but unfortunately our room was far from ready. Luckily we had the arrival day scheduled as a pool day so we dug out our bathing suits & books from the luggage in the car and plopped down on the lounge chairs for the afternoon. It really was late afternoon until the room was ready; we loved the sun, loved the view, and loved the tropical pool and cheerful bar maid but a 4 hour wait? To be fair, regular check-in is at 4pm but we had requested an early arrival... The front desk was very apologetic and offered us coupons for the pool bar that more than covered our lunch & libations!

aaah, sunset from balcony

Our hotel is a timeshare property and our room is a suite with a full kitchen and washer/dryer!! We upgraded to an oceanfront room for only $20 more per night and so we are lulled into slumber each evening by the crashing waves and all we can see from our balcony is ocean, grass and trees!

Our first scheduled activity was a sightseeing helicopter ride early Sunday morning. Mom and I definitely rubbed the right rabbit's foot as we scored front row seats right beside the pilot!!

mom played co-pilot, keeping a close eye on all the gauges!

Kauai opened up before us as we flew clockwise around the island: Waimea Canyon (Grand Canyon of the Pacific) dropped away at our feet, we soared along the Na Pali coast, and hovered in a towering extinct crater. As a special treat, the pilot got permission from air traffic control to swing out over the ocean and we circled around a momma whale that had just that instant given birth to a new baby humpback!

fly-by over the Na Pali coast

we flew right into this crater!

Our afternoon plans were to hike in Waimea Canyon but the clouds had rolled in and the dry side of the island was in fact wet, so we had to satisfy ourselves with driving up the rim road to various misty outlooks, then back down again.

our usual view

but the mist lifted just as we were leaving = fantastic!!

Today we ventured to the wet side of the island (which, of course, was dry), and drove until we could drive no more. We ended at Ke'e Beach, the start of the strenuous cliff-side 11-mile Kalalau Trail. We hiked 4 miles of it, 2 miles in and 2 miles out, and were thrilled by the experience. It was steep, rocky, muddy, slippery, hot, humid, and magnificent. The waves were crashing, birds chirping, and people sweating. We passed several hearty souls with big backpacks who were out to do the whole trail, most over several days - didn't they see it was forecast to rain the next two days? All power to them.

Thanks, Allison
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Oahu

Our first island paradise is soon to be a memory. We've spent the first 3 nights of our vacation (from our vacation!) in Waikiki, Oahu, and now it'll be off to Kauai tomorrow. It's my first visit ever to Hawaii and mum's first in over 25 years so we planned a little sampler trip to see 4 islands in 13 days.

Oahu did not disappoint. We knew it would be the commercial giant of the islands so we jumped right into it our first afternoon and strolled down busy Kalakaua Avenue, marveling at how much Waikiki was just like Downtown, USA yet still wonderfully tropical. The beach was slightly underwhelming as just offshore was a huge dredging barge and parts of the shoreline were closed for repairs but dozens of surfers were still patiently waiting to catch a wave and all nationalities of greased bodies were lying suntanning, so it pretty much met expectations. An hour or two at Duke's beach bar watching the sun slowly drop capped off a wonderful day.

Visiting the USS Arizona Memorial was high on our Tourist List so we toured the very moving Pearl Harbor exhibit our first morning, then hopped aboard 'The Bus' for a grand circle tour of the island. We were fortunate enough to happen to leave right at 3pm and so got up close and personal with a fair majority of the islands' pre-teen population! Somehow the views of the dramatic sheer-cliffed mountains and stunning beaches drew our attention away from their engaging personalities!

This morning we walked from our hotel over and up right to the very top of Diamond Head. We have a stunning view of DH from our hotel room, but I'm a little embarrassed to admit that I didn't remember it was an extinct volcano until we walked through a tunnel at the entrance to the state park and right into the crater of the caldera. .8 miles of ascent and stairs took us to the overlook with stunning views of Waikiki to the west and every other direction as well.

A quick trip to Hanauma Bay (nope, no snorkeling, this Pacific is cold!!), and a relaxing afternoon at our hotel's pool finally put the relaxation in our holiday.

A few moonlit cocktails beachside at the Moana Surfrider hotel, listening to some mellow guitar music and munching a few pupus and all is right with our world tonight.

Thanks, Allison
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