Whalers Village Centre
Today we toured the west side of Maui.
It was a lot windier today and cooler – we nearly got blown away at our outdoor table at breakfast ! I’m sure I have mentioned it in my previous USA blogs but in the US you don’t get bacon as we are used to at home. US cooked bacon is thin and various degrees of “burnt to a crisp” – today was extra crispy. Its not that it tastes bad – I suppose it ends up a bit like crackling !
Native Hawaiian Xnmas tree !
Anyway, we headed off with the commentary of Adrienne’s app leading the way and this time we drove along the more leisurely coast road instead of the highway. And it was literally the coast road as in some places there was only a beach between the road and ocean. The west side is around the second smaller volcano which makes up the island – Puu Kukui – you say all the letters in Hawaiian so it is Poo-oo Koo-koo-ee. It is really a contrast of climates around it. Higher up it is quite green but down lower and onto the coast it is very brown and often barren where the irrigation isn’t in place/used.
Papawai Point lookout
Our first stop – though we didn’t actually stop as we couldn’t get a parking space – was Lahaina. This was actually the first capital city of Hawaii until Honolulu took over and is still referred to as the royal city. It was a thriving hub when the first white visitors/settlers came as the whaling ships stopped offshore and it became the major contact point. We looped around a couple of times before heading on to Kaanapali. We stopped here for a break to walk around the Whalers Village Centre – a mixture of shops and resorts. We then headed a bit further to Honolua Bay before turning back. The northern part of the road, like the section beyond Hana yesterday, is pretty bad so rental car companies do not let you take their cars along those roads !
Iao Valley
So, like yesterday, we headed back the way we came but we stopped at a couple of lookouts we had passed on the way earlier. Back in central Maui, we decided to go to Iao Valley State Park. In the space of 5 minutes, the scenery changes from something like the centre of Parramatta to something like the centre of the Daintree Forest !
The Needle
The Iao Valley is one of the eroded sections of the volcano and has clouds hanging around it all the time. The average rainfall here is said to be 1 inch per DAY. Luckily we missed any of it but the way water has eroded the valley over time is amazing and with the constant rain there are numerous fast flowing streams. There is also a rock formation called the Needle – for obvious reasons.
On the way back we managed to find a Sears, another Macys and another Walmart so we could do our bit toward keeping the Hawaiian economy afloat !
This evening we decided just to have room service. We had a huge breakfast again so decided to skip lunch and have an early dinner watching the sun go down from our balcony. Adrienne had that good old American staple – a Double Cheeseburger, with a nice glass of sauvignon blanc. I had a Moroccan Club Sandwich and a Bikini Blonde Lager from the Maui Brewing Company.
So that pretty much brings our stay on Maui to an end – tomorrow it is on to island number 3.
You can join us for our sunset today in the timelapse video blow – Aloha from Maui ! (If you get this by email, here is the link http://youtu.be/-aCjjjuayUs )