Maui Trip
I finally got some time to sit down and scan some of the slides from the trip to Maui. I'm going to make this post an extended entry, meaning the bulk of it will be accessible from the link below. I did this in order to reduce the size of the main page, since I plan to put many pictures up. That way no one has to unwillingly suffer through a huge download. So, if you're interested in getting the whole story, just click on the link, but be aware that it may take a while to get all the images, and the text is pretty long.
Our trip started out on Friday, Oct. 22. We flew up to LAX early in the morning and from there we flew straight into Kahului airport in Maui. We arrived around 11:30 a.m. local time. After picking up a rental car we headed over to Costco to stock up on fluids and such that we'd need while travelling around.
The first part of our trip was going to be spent at a bed & breakfast in Kipahulu, about 10 miles south of Hana on the east side of Haleakala. After a quick lunch we headed out to the Hana Highway. We stopped briefly at Ho'okipa Beach to check out some of the windsurfing activity. Here's a shot of that area taken with a wide-angle lens.
From there, we continued east along the Hana Highway with several stops along the way to enjoy the scenery. The island of Maui began as two separate volcanoes. Haleakala, the larger eastern volcano, reached its highest peak at about 12,000 feet, and these days it stands at just over 10,000 feet at the summit. The Hana Highway runs along the northern side of Haleakala and gets very twisty as it nears Hana. Trade winds from the northeast bring clouds in and create a very lush environment on the northern and eastern sides of the island. The area in which we stayed during the first half of our trip sees about 80 inches of rainfall per year. I stopped to take a few shots along the way, here is a photo looking south from one of the turnouts along the highway. Haleakala was blanketed in clouds from about 3,000 feet up during most of our visit.
We continued driving east toward our bed & breakfast spot. By the way, the book we used as our primary guide for the trip was Maui Revealed, which most people agree provides the best information and most in-depth coverage of the island, although some of the locals don't seem too fond of it (more on that later). After a few more stops along the way we realized that, despite allowing ourselves five hours or so to make the drive from Kahului to Kipahulu, we were starting to fall a little behind schedule. Our guide book mentions suffering from "beauty fatigue", and I think we were already experiencing some of that after a few hours of seeing some of the most beautiful sights imaginable. So for the last couple hours of the drive we didn't stop much in order to make it to our room before dark.
I want to briefly talk about the Hana Highway. Yes, it does get pretty twisty but it wasn't as bad as I was made to believe from people to which I had spoken. Moreover, even the unpaved areas (most of which we didn't encounter until the second half of our trip as we drove around the south side of the island) are graded weekly and are very safe to travel in any vehicle. We had a Pontiac Vibe and had no trouble at all. The only thing that is a bit stressful is how narrow the highway gets after leaving Hana. It basically gets about a lane-and-a-half wide, which means that if you encounter another vehicle going in the opposite direction, one of you will have to find a small turnout in which to drive your vehicle to let the other pass. Fortunately, you shouldn't encounter very many vehicles while driving this stretch. The majority of tourists go no further than Hana.
We arrived at the bed & breakfast shortly before sunset. Kipahulu, as I mentioned earlier, is about 10 miles south of Hana and only a couple miles away from the eastern side of Haleakala National Park. The house at which we stayed is owned by a mother/daughter pair named Samadhi and Mercury. I recommend the place highly if you're looking for a quiet, secluded spot...here is a link. Don't let the picture on the main page fool you, you don't get that whole house, you get the room on the left, but that is more than you'll need, trust me. You'll want to reserve it in advance, the place is booked pretty much throughout the year. The hosts are very kind and the views are great. The property is large and has lots of plants and gardens which are meticulously maintained. In addition, they have an outdoor shower and tub, kitchen facilities and a huge VHS tape collection. There is nothing more relaxing than watching a Maui sunset while sitting in a tub full of hot water with an ice cold beer in hand. Here is a view from the back porch of the property looking southeast at sunrise.
Saturday was our first full day on the island. I found myself waking up at sunrise every day. After a quick breakfast of apple bananas, banana bread from the Halfway to Hana fruit stand and some star fruit, we headed out to the Blue Pool, located at the base of a 100 foot waterfall and dumping directly into the ocean. Along the way I stopped to photograph this waterfall at Wailua.
The Blue Pool is somewhat hidden from view and access to it requires a very short hike over some rocks along the beach. The earlier you can get out to these places the better, since most people don't seem to get out until after 11 a.m. We arrived at this pool shortly after 9 a.m. and had it to ourselves most of the time we were there.
A local dog got attached to us from the moment we parked, and followed us all along the quarter-mile walk to the beach and continued following us along the rocks to the pool. Imagine being able to call this place your home. Lucky dog.
We also ran into a local along the way so we talked to him during our short hike. He asked us how we found out about this spot and we mentioned the book we used, which he referred to as Maui Reviled. This guy owns most of the property near the Blue Pool, according to him, and he seems to spend most of his time cutting down brush with a machete and cleaning up after people. I inquired further about that and he mentioned that the problem is mostly locals from other parts of the island that come out there and drink and leave all their trash behind. I found that a little surprising.
From there we drove down to Wai'anapanapa Park, home of Black Sand Beach. The beach itself is pretty small, I expected it to be a long stretch but it is only about 100 feet or so, but it is gorgeous. Here is a photo looking towards the beach area.
There is also a blowhole area on this park. I found a small inlet nearby where incoming surf would shoot water 20 feet in the air or so.
Here's another photo, taken from Black Sand Beach.
Later that day we stopped by the Venus Pool, a secluded spot that is about a five minute walk from the highway. It was at this spot that I realized how many people come to Maui with a checklist in hand, hitting each spot on their list, checking it off, and moving on to the next. What a horrible way to spend a vacation. We stayed at the Venus Pool for probably an hour to an hour and a half. In that time, we saw several groups of people come up, look around, maybe snap a picture or two, and then move on. How does anyone with that kind of agenda ever get to relax or even get to know a place? We took advantage of our time there to swim in the pools a while, check out the surroundings and just lay down and relax. Of course, it started raining before too long, so we decided to start heading back since it was starting to get late in the day. I didn't get any pictures of this area due to the rain, but trust me, it is beautiful.
Haleakala National Park's eastern area was our plan for Sunday. A hike on the Pipiwai trail, which leads from the park entrance near the ocean to the 400-foot Waimoku Falls, is definitely a must if you are on this side of the island. It is about a two-mile hike one-way and an elevation change of about 700 feet, so it is not too strenuous. If an old guy like me can do it carrying 30 lbs. of gear, then it shouldn't be a problem for most people, although I have to admit I was pretty beat at the end of the day. Our guide book says the hike can take anywhere from 2.5 to 5 hours to complete. We stopped at a couple pools for a dip and I also made several stops for pictures, so we ended up taking about 6 hours to complete it. The trail starts out rather uninterestingly, but about a half mile in you'll start to see some really great views of the Pipiwai Stream. There are also several banyan trees, which are amazing sights on their own. Here is a shot of a banyan tree right on the trail.
About the time you pass that banyan tree you'll hit some of the first pools. We stopped and swam around for a while, enjoying the cool water. As we left the first set of pools I noticed that the area was full of guava trees, so I picked a couple for eating later. A few more pools later and you'll come to a couple bridges that cross the stream. The view from the first bridge is spectacular, I took a couple pictures from there but they were underexposed. The real treat, however, begins after crossing the two bridges. Here is where the bamboo forest starts and it is breathtaking. The bamboo is around 50 feet tall and blocks most of the sunlight from coming through, making for a very dark trail. All the pictures I took inside the bamboo forest were several seconds long. Here is a shot of a small stream covered by branches just before the bamboo forest.
And here's a shot as the trail starts to lead into the thick bamboo growth.
Walking through the bamboo forest was quite an experience. Of course, the ultimate goal was to reach the 400-foot Waimoku Falls. As luck would have it, as we made the final stream crossing and were within a couple hundred feet of the falls, the skies opened up and dumped on us. It rained hard for about 15 minutes, it was all we could do to keep some of our stuff dry but when the rain stopped we were sopping wet. I rushed across the stream and set up my tripod to try to get a picture. I had just a few seconds before the rain came pouring down again, forcing us to start heading down. I only got two shots and of those two only one came out halfway decent, but here it is.
As you can tell from the photo, despite my best attempts to keep water off my camera equipment I did get a couple of raindrops on my polarizing filter. Oh, well, you get an idea of what a beautiful sight this was. You definitely don't want to miss it, the hike is well worth it.
Monday, the fourth day of our trip, was a travel day. The plan was to drive around the south side of the island and then come up to summit of Haleakala. We hit the road at around 10 a.m. The south side of the volcano looks nothing at all like the eastern and northern sides, no lush, overgrown rain forest, mostly just grass and a tree here and there. We made a couple stops along the way, at the Pokowai Sea Arch and at the Waiopai bridge. Around 1 p.m. we started driving up to the summit of Haleakala. There are several turnouts where you can get some spectacular views of the island. Here is a view looking down at Ma'alaea Harbor from about 8,000 feet up.
As our luck would have it, the summit was shrouded in heavy cloud cover, preventing us from getting what could have been some of the more amazing views that this park has to offer. I was, however, able to get some nice shots of the crater. Here is one.
By then it was getting late so we headed out to the hotel at which we would be staying for the second half of our trip in Ka'anapali. We got there just as it was getting dark. After checking into our room we headed down to Lahaina for dinner.
Early Tuesday morning we headed out to the Ma'alaea Harbor to catch a boat out to do some snorkeling at Molokini. Our guide book stated that the Four Winds II is the best snorkel boat to take out, and they definitely run a pretty good tour. The crew really goes out of their way to make it a pleasant trip. The total duration of the trip was 5 hours...one and a half hours out to Molokini, two hours of snorkeling, and then an hour and a half on the boat back to the harbor. Molokini is a sunken crater that provides the best snorkeling in all of Maui. I don't have any photos, since I chose not to bring my photo gear on the boat and most of our time was spent in the ocean, anyways. One thing that I thought was a bit odd...although we had two hours of snorkeling time, most of the people on the boat didn't snorkel more than a half hour or so. After their initial swim they got on the boat and ate the awesome burgers that the crew was barbequing. Well, we weren't having any of that. As it turned out, we were the last two people to get out of the water, snorkeling almost the entire 2 hours. I didn't realize they were calling my name over the loudspeaker until I poked my head up out of the water. I mean, with the water so clear and the fish plentiful, there was no way we were going to waste a single minute of our snorkeling time.
After our boat returned to the harbor we headed back to our hotel. Here is a shot I took on Tuesday afternoon from our hotel room balcony. Kind of makes you wonder how we ever managed to leave this place.
On a recommendation, we had dinner at Sansei Restaurant, a seafood restaurant and sushi bar in Kapalua. I was told to try the Rock Shrimp Dynamite and it was awesome. Of course, I also had my usual fare of salmon, tuna and yellowtail, with some octopus thrown in for good measure. The food was delicious, I highly recommend it. They have two locations on Maui and a new one in Honolulu.
Wednesday was our last day so we spent the morning on the beach outside our hotel. Here is the view from that spot, looking south at Haleakala.
The afternoon was spent driving down through Kihei and Wailea. Our return flight was at 10:25 that night, so I decided to chase down the perfect sunset. With so many beautiful spots to choose from, it was difficult pick one from which to watch our last Maui sunset. We finally decided on Ahihi Cove, near the lava area south of Wailea. And I believe we did find the perfect spot. What do you think?
