This will be a short post for our last day in Maui. It’s been a very casual day that started with chocolate croissants on the lanai followed by a couple of hours at Mokapu Beach.
We had reserved an umbrella at Auntie Snorkel Beach Rentals in Kihei, but when we got there David recommended against the umbrella given how windy it was today. We took his advice and got a second beach chair instead (the kind that folds fairly small and has backpack straps).
The beach was actually beautiful and we managed to secure a shaded area under some trees. A couple of swims and a few chapters of my book later, and we brought the chair back to Auntie Snorkel’s and went for a late lunch at Cafe O’Lei upstairs from the store. Lunch was very good, but Dan pointed out that we haven’t made a bad choice yet for places to eat.
We stopped back at the condo from there to drop off our beach gear and chill for a beat before heading back out. We had been wanting to walk the Wailea Beach Path, so we parked at the Polo Beach parking lot and walked for about half an hour before stopping to watch the sunset. Then we walked back to the car and returned to the condo.
I went and picked up some food from Island Gourmet Market to nibble on for the rest of the evening while we did laundry and binged on more Murder, She Wrote.
As the title indicates, today was our Road to Hana day. Despite the 620 curves, the road is actually pretty great. Just take your time, pull over when safe to do so to let others pass you, and be courteous at the single lane bridges — of which there are many.
Many other blogs and articles about driving the Road to Hana tell you to leave at stupid-o’clock in the morning so you can see and do everything and still make it back before dark. We did not do this. I am not a stupid-o’clock-in-the-morning kind of person, so it frankly would have ruined my day to have to get up that early. Instead we focused on only doing enough to still get to the beach on time for our reserved time slot.
With that in mind, we left the condo at about 9:00 a.m. At the recommendation of my friend Michelle, we downloaded an audio app called Shaka Guide which offers narrated driving tours for all over the world, including the Road to Hana. BEST RECOMMENDATION EVER! This app had cool narration, spot on navigation with points of interest, recommendations for stops and when to take them, travel time estimation, and local music and stories between navigation instructions. The music was appropriate to the drive — in that it was soothing Hawaiian music to keep you calm on the road rather than heavy metal or rock which would stress you out.
The scenery was amazing on the drive. Our first stop was at the Ke’anae Peninsula where we got a close-up view of the ocean breaking against young lava rocks. We ate chili and hotdogs at Aunty Sandy’s Banana Bread, and yes, we also picked up a loaf of banana bread, which is totally everything it’s hyped up to be.
We continued on our way and didn’t stop again until we reached the Wai’anapanapa State Park, which is where the Black Sand Beach is. Very cool place! The way the black pebbles on the beach move tickled my feet, and the black sand itself was slippery(?) due to how round it was — although not as much as the sand at Ho’okipa Beach. I swam in the water twice while we were there, and we ate some more Maui Gold pineapple, before meandering along a path to an outcrop overlooking a blowhole and looking back towards the beach. It started raining at that point, but our timeslot was nearly over anyway.
We moved on to the Hana Lava Tube, which is the 18th largest lava tube in the world. You pay for entry and they give you a flashlight so you can see where you’re going. You go down these steps into the pitch black (hence the need for flashlights) and then walk in the tube for a quarter mile following information panels. There were very cool features throughout, and the ceiling in most of it was at least 20 feet high (no worries about claustrophobia here). We didn’t see them, but apparently there are a few kinds of insects and worms that live in the tube that are specifically evolved to do so. Dan managed to find a single stalk growing out of the ground on one side, apparently without light. At one point there’s a feature of a type of stalactite that looks like chocolate, although to me they look more like cacao beans before they’re dried out. The entire tour only took about 30-40 minutes, and we thought it was well worth the $15 entry fee.
By this time it was already quarter to 5:00, so we just drove straight back to the condo. We agreed that the Road to Hana is a worthy repeat adventure, given there are so many wonderful places we could have stopped along the way. But the drive itself is worth it all on its own. On the way through Paia we noticed a lot of traffic parked on the side of the road and speculated that it might be to watch some surfing. We recalled that earlier in the day there had been high surf warnings, and sure enough as we drove a little further down the highway where we could see the shore the waves were spectacular! They were maybe three times higher than the last time we passed by that area (Ho’okipa Beach).
When we got back we were quite hungry, so after a quick shower and change we looked up Italian restaurants in Wailea and picked the first one that came up: Olivine. We made a reservation through OpenTable without really thinking about it and left right away. What we didn’t realize until we got there was that Olivine is at the Grand Wailea Resort (a Waldorf Astoria property). There’s no self-parking, it’s all valet parking which is included. The restaurant is all the way at the other end of the property on the ground floor by the pools — we had to take the elevator down four floors from the lobby. We had to ask directions from the Bellman to get to the right elevators, and then we had to follow another young couple going to the same place through the dark pathways to find it. We ended up inadvertently treating our selves to a VERY expensive Italian dinner that was SO worth it! The wait staff was very friendly, and despite the price we had a lovely evening.
After a long but wonderful day I’m ready to just relax and read for a bit. So with that, Aloha ahiahi!
Beach day today! As we had nothing scheduled until this evening we were able to get up whenever we wanted to and do whatever we wanted to. So we decided to find our way to the beach behind the condo, and then figure out the easiest path to take the wagon with beach chairs, etcetera, through the property down to the beach gate. Oddly, that took longer than it probably should have (I’m not sure if this property is actually that big or if we’re just confused). Additionally, it turns out the property changed the gate codes two days before we arrived, so the codes we got from the property manager in the welcome package were already wrong. Thankfully one of the neighbouring guests provided the correct code to us. At any rate, I think we’re finally getting the lay of the property’s land, and in the process I also found the fitness room! Now let’s see if I actually get down there before we leave…
We finally got settled on Keawakapu Beach at around 11:00 or so, relaxed in the chairs, sunk our toes in the sand, went for a swim twice (well, I went for a swim twice; Dan just got his feet wet), snacked on Maui Gold pineapple, Crunchmaster crackers, and Surfing Goat Dairy’s Ivory Coast cheese, read a chapter of Craig Alanson‘s fourth book in the Expeditionary Force series (Skippy is such an asshole), and watched some whales play (fight? carouse? court?) just off the beach.
After a couple of hours of all that, we returned to the condo, showered the salt and sunscreen off, chilled for a minute or two, and then took off to Lahaina again. On the way we realized we hadn’t actually had anything substantive to eat today, so we stopped in Olowalu for lunch at Leoda’s Kitchen and Pie Shop. We did not have the dessert pie, which looked amazing, but Dan did have the chicken pot pie while I had a BLT sandwhich on the softest and freshest bread I’ve had in a long time. Both were really tasty, and the restaurant was a nice little diner that was clearly very popular because by the time we had ordered there was a line-up out the door.
We intended to return to the Dragon Fruit Farm to purchase some preserves and leave the tip we didn’t get to when we were there, but they ended up not being open when we got there. So we just kept going to the Hyatt Resort for the Drums of the Pacific Lu’au. We received kukui nut leis (kukui trees are the state tree of Hawaii, by the way), a complimentary photo of us, and we sat at a table right in front of the stage. The servers were great, the show was great, the food was great, the company at our table was great… everything was great. The dances represented south pacific regions: Tuamotus, New Zealand, Tahiti, Tonga, Hawai’i, and Rarotonga. They included a Haka and a fire dance, which was pretty spectacular.
The highlight of the evening, though, was when Dan actually said he would want to come back to Maui again. I’m on it…
After a brief chill on the lanai with a light breakfast our day began by going snorkelling at Makena Landing Park. To be more specific, we went snorkelling with sea scooters. Remember those scenes in James Bond films where he’s swimming under water pulled by a motor? Yeah, that! Our tour guides, Tristan and Seth with My Splash Maui, were fantastic! They were professional, considerate, enthusiastic, and knowledgeable. Basically a lot of fun. They got us kitted out and instructed us in how to use the equipment. Then they guided us all the way out to Turtle Town, showing and teaching us about the reefs, various sea creatures, the caves (we did not go in), the environment we were visiting, etcetera. We saw multiple varieties of fish, there was a white tipped reef shark in the caves, the guide let us handle two “fatty” starfish — one keiki (baby) and one adult, and we saw spiky sea urchins, an eel, a turtle, a puffer fish, and we heard whale song.
By the time we reached our furthest destination my body decided it was time to feed the fishes. Had I foreseen the likelihood of getting motion sick while snorkelling I would have taken Gravol before hand; alas, I did not. I mean, really, who knew sitting in the swells talking with other snorkellers between stretches of swimming would have the same effect as riding a boat in choppy waters? Clearly that was just me…
At any rate, we still had a great time and I would highly recommend taking this tour with Tristan and his team. The photos I’m attaching here from this experience were taken by Seth, who did a great job! He took loads of photos and videos, including one video that actually captured the whale song.
We returned to the condo to wash off and give my body a chance to regain its equilibrium before heading out to our next adventure. Before getting there, we stopped at Fred’s Mexican Cafe and Cantina for lunch. Why there? Why not? It was a choice we made on a whim from Googlemaps. Turned out the positive reviews on Google were absolutely correct. The place was fantastic, service was great, and the fish tacos and chicken quesadillas were perfect.
Oh, here’s Dan with the Dodge Charger I mentioned we ended up with:
Next stop was a 45-minute drive to Lahaina which turned into an hour because of construction on the highway and our Lady Sat Nav taking us to the wrong place. Googlemaps rescued us (again) and finally got us to the right place just in time for our first tour to start. As it happened Maui Dragon Fruit Farm didn’t have anyone else scheduled to join us for either of the two tours we booked, so we had the sole pleasure of our guides’ company.
The first tour was of the farm itself. Our guide (and I am so sorry, I do not remember the young lady’s name) was very pleasant and knowledgable about the farm, and provided us with a fully interactive tour. So many tropical fruits and plants are grown at this farm besides dragon fruit (which is not actually in season so we didn’t get to taste it). They have two or three different kinds of aloe plants, a curry plant, a watermelon plant, agave plants, wild bamboo, at least three different types of bananas, papaya, mango, pineapple, soursop, lilikoi, coconut… I could go on. We ended that tour with a sampling of in-season fruits: pineapple, soursop, papaya, mango, lilikoi, and two others that I can’t remember the names of.
The second tour was a stargazing tour, which did not end up in any opportunity to actually stargaze because of cloud cover, but the guide, Yi, was really interesting and informative. He showed us the three types of telescopes he uses, and then went through the different types of celestial events and constellations. So much information! Yi was very thorough. Dan might be exploring another hobby, were it not for how cold it is at home when it’s dark enough to see the stars… We exchanged numbers with Yi and promised to watch the forecast to see if we could make it back another day to do some actual stargazing with him. It turns out Yi is not only a fellow Canadian but also a neurosurgeon, which explains why he kept making analogies between how our brains and the universe work. Or something to that effect. I’m tired as I write this late at night, so I might not be saying that quite correctly.
After a long day we drove home and ordered a pizza for a late supper. Sure enough, by the time we drove into the condo parking lot the sky was clear of clouds and the stars were visible everywhere. Typical.
Guigon Travels 