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…
Today’s adventures took us into the Upcountry area of Maui, about half way up Haleakala. Once you get past the landfill (that Lady Sat Nav chose to take us past), the drive was easy going. And then out of nowhere this beautiful farm bursts forth to take your breath away. Or at least it took mine away. It was clear that at some time in the past someone with some money lived on that road because now it has grown into this iconic Hawaiian approach to an estate. The road was well maintained and planned. It was lined with huge, evenly spaced, old-growth coconut trees, and had a view to die for. It’s the type of area that Dan noted seems like a character like Jonathan Higgins (Magnum P.I.) would caretake.
This approach led us to the Surfing Goat Dairy Farm, which is a 40-acre-plus property that does exactly what it sounds like: raises goats and processes their milk into various products. The farm itself is very well laid out and taken care of, with various pens for goats at different stages of their life, a mechanical milking shed, a barn, a dairy processing building, a future truffle making building, a gazebo and sheltered deck attached to the gift shop and kitchen.
The goats are freaking adorable. The tour guide introduced us to a new born goat before taking us around to meet their primary buck Hemingway and part of his harem. Apparently Hemingway really got into his job last year because they now have far more kidds on the way than they usually do.
The tour guide (and again, I apologize, but I’ve forgotten her name — I’m a terrible person that way) showed us how the milking machine works and the kitchen where the milk is pasturized and processed into cheese, where the cheesemaker gave us samples of plain cream cheese and a flavoured cream cheese that they named Canada — wootwoot! Both were fantastic. Canada was flavoured with cranberries, cinnamon, and honey. Oh, my God, I cannot even describe how tasty it was! So good.
At the end of the tour we sat down to a sampler cheese platter, where they gave us a bag of assorted crackers and six samples of their cheeses: I totally forget the names, but there was balls of cheese with garlic infused olive oil; feta; balls of cheese with another kind of oil that I can’t remember the seasonings; sundried tomato cream cheese; pepper cream cheese; and lilikoi cream cheese. All of them were delicious, but I think our favourite savoury were the pepper cream cheese and the sundried tomato cream cheese, but the lilikoi was soooo yummy in a dessert kind of way.
Needless to say we ended up purchasing way more from the gift shop here than we have anywhere else yet, including: three kinds of cream cheese, a box of truffles, lilikoi butter, a t-shirt, and a cooler because we needed to get the cream cheeses safely home and we weren’t even through half of our day. We expect to snack on the cheese and crackers throughout our stay, so don’t ask us to try any when we get home because we don’t expect to have any left.
Next on our itinerary, we made our way on another scenic drive to the town of Makawao. Our goal here was specifically to see the Hot Island Glass store, but we had trouble finding parking and ended up taking a rather pleasant walk down an old-timey type street of stores to get to the glass maker. If we’d had more time before our next stop we likely would have browsed some more. Unfortunately, glass was not actively being made when we got to the store, but their products were wonderful and we did take a couple of items away with us.
We booked our way down to what was supposed to be the highlight of the day, and despite being overshadowed by the Surfing Goat Dairy, it did hold up to expectations. We had a wonderful tour of the Maui Pineapple Farm, which grows sweet, sweet pineapples branded as Maui Gold. And oh, lord, are they ever gold! These pineapples are the BEST, and no we do not expect that either of the two pineapples we received as part of the tour will make it to the end of the week to bring home with us. The tour guide, Keilan, was a delight and showed us around the grounds and through the processing plant.
Did you know that not only are pineapples not grown in trees (they grow low to the ground in kind of bushes) but that they are also not citrus? That’s right, they are actually a bunch of berries. The berries coalesce at the crown of the fruiting stem. Each of the pointy nibs that encircle the pineapple is what’s left of the flowers that produce the berries. The pineapples that this farm produces are far sweeter than those that we get in North America because the ones we get are actually not yet ripe. The ones we get are shipped from various Asian and South American countries, so in order to lengthen their shelf life they are picked earlier than they should be. Pineapples do not keep ripening after they’ve been picked, the way bananas do, so those pineapples haven’t had time for the sugars to trade places with the acids. Because the Maui Gold pineapples are allowed to ripen before they’re harvested, they are a much sweeter fruit with a much smaller core that you can eat entirely and that doesn’t have as many of the enzymes that make your tongue tingle the way other pineapples do. Maui Gold pineapples are not sold anywhere in the world but in the Hawaiian Islands chain, so you’re just going to have to travel to Maui and take the tour. Although, they do take on-line orders and will ship the pineapples anywhere in North America, so I guess you could do that… and you can get a subscription to receive them as frequently as once per week.
We kind of winged it after that. We thought we’d try and get a table at Mama’s Fish House, but, yeah, that didn’t work. then we drove down the coast a little bit and walked around Ho’okipa Beach Park and watched the surf — and some surfers — from the cliff before taking a rather slippery (not sure that’s the right word) walk on the beach down below. I say slippery because the sand grains were round and tended to roll as you sunk into it. Dan says the engineering term is uniformly graded, meaning the grains were all the same size. It was kind of weird, but fun to walk on. Or should I say try to walk on.
Anyway, we thought we’d try to go to Paia Fish Market, but when we passed it there was a line forming, it was on the other side of the road, and it was rush hour so we couldn’t find a way to turn around for the extremely long line of cars in the oncoming lane. So instead we returned to the condo, dropped off our stuff, and ended up by random chance at The Shops at Wailea where we went for supper at Tommy Bahamas. Their tables were full, but there was room at the bar, so we ate there. The bar servers were great! The bartender didn’t intend to, but he put on an amazing show for us as we watched him keeping up with the drink orders. He was really moving. The food was pretty good, too.
We had thought to go for a walk on the Wailea Beach Path, but that will have to wait for another time. We also thought to wander around the condo property to try and get to the public beach, but I forgot the code to get through the gate, so I guess that will have to wait for another time, too.
Now we’re back at the condo, munching on pineapple pieces and shortbread cookies.
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.
Not that we were actually expecting to see wild poultry, but the title here is not exactly what Dan first came up with. “Roosters” is in quotation marks because what Dan suggested — while I laughed — I thought better of posting. I’d rather not get put in FaceBook jail, thank you very much. And yes, there are roosters and hens pretty much everywhere we went today.
We woke up at our leisure this morning to a beautifully sunny day at the Days Inn. They had a small continental breakfast spread, nothing fancy, but very good and just enough for our purposes.
Check in at the condo wasn’t until 4pm, so we had the day to kill pretty much. We started off by at least finding our way to the condo to get a lay of the land, so to speak. And then we just drove randomly at first. Somehow we still ended up back in Kahului (near the airport), where we did a little clothes shopping (the shorts I brought turned out to be too big???).
In the course of our wanderings we had passed by this place called Momona a few times. It wasn’t until the third time that we realized it was a bakery and cafe, so since it seemed to be beckoning us anyway we stopped for lunch. It’s a delightful place, bright and airy, and the building must have been a bank in its former life because they had converted the safe into a private dining area and kept the vault door and bars. Dan confirmed the windowless room was walled in concrete. They have a sign on the door telling people not to close it — I imagine they likely don’t have the key or combination to it, lol! The sandwiches were perfect, and even the hot chocolate I had was decent (you all know by now how picky I am about that). Five out of five stars, highly recommended! And yes, I will be posting a review on Google to that effect.
A little grocery shopping, WalMart gold in the clothing department (I know, WalMart?! Really?), and then we were able to access the condo. Our friends Mark and Linda have this place (which I believe they might be trying to sell, if anyone’s interested) at Wailea Ekahi. It’s actually pretty perfect for us. Well laid out, full kitchen, dining room, lanai, living room, huge bedroom, two bathrooms, all appliances. There’s a pool, pavilion, pickleball court, and fitness room (oh! That’s what I forgot to go look for today…). The vacation property managers (Coldwell Banker Island Vacations) have been really good with staying in touch with us by text and email from the get-go, and they have an online portal that’s pretty easy to navigate. Definite thumbs up so far.
After settling in and unpacking, and taking a little rest, we made our way back to the Kahului Shopping Centre to visit the Maui Sunday Market. We thought it was a FARMERS market because I found it by searching for “Maui Sunday Farmers Market”), so our thinking was to get fresh bread, preserves, and fruit there (rather than from Safeway where we were earlier). But it wasn’t a farmers market, it was a vendors market with what must have been a dozen food trucks and live music. It was actually pretty cool, although we didn’t buy anything except supper. It was not easy to choose between the food trucks, but we ended up going with Al’s BBQ Pit. They had an adobe rice with chicken dish and a teriyaki mahi dish that were both pretty awesome. We ate in the dark (for some reason they didn’t have lighting at the picnic tables), with what I’ll call “mood lighting” from my cell phone.
A good first day all around, I would say. Time to wind it down. Tomorrow we hit the water in the morning and stargazing in the evening.
I realize it’s been a long time since I’ve posted anything travel related, and I do have a previous trip to add in that occurred before this one that I just haven’t gotten around to. In case the title phrase isn’t enough of a hint, though, I’m saying good evening to you in Hawaiian because we arrived in Maui at 11:00 p.m. Hawaiian time. Yes, that’s right, Maui. Not our typical type of adventure, but it’s been 38 years since I was here as a teenager and Dan has never been here. I knew there were adventures to have that I wanted Dan to experience. When Dan ended up with an unexpected three weeks off in January I suggested we go to Hawaii. He wasn’t sold on it at first, saying he didn’t really want to go anywhere hot. I reminded him that Hawaii in January is not exactly hot. Certainly better than home! But not hot. It wasn’t until his brother John talked up Maui to him that he agreed to go. I grabbed onto that and refused to let go, so here we are!
11 Jan 2025 – Travel Day
Our Westjet flight was scheduled to leave Yellowknife at 7:00 this morning (it of course didn’t leave until well after that, what with de-icing and such), which is an ugly time given we had to be at the airport two hours early. But we napped on the flight, and other than meeting three separate sets of friends (two with completely different destinations and one with exactly the same destination), the flight was uneventful. Even, dare I say, peaceful?
We had about a three-hour layover in Calgary where I took advantage of the time to get more than half of my steps in and do a round of stretching at the so-called yoga room. I say so-called because for what’s supposed to be a relaxing exercise space it’s full of an awful lot of chairs and assorted seating and not a lot of space to actually exercise. Regardless, I claimed a rectangular area and just went ahead and did what I wanted.
The next leg was an hour and 45 minute flight to Vancouver, followed by a 3.5 hour layover plus another 0.5 hours, and then a 5.5 hour flight to Kahului Airport. This entire period was incredibly uneventful, although the in-flight meal I purchased was absolutely wonderful! Mushroom risotto with steamed peas, greek salad, a warmed bun, and berry cheesecake. And served with real cutlery, too! Wow, right?
Our flight landed at about 10: 30 p.m. or so, our luggage took almost half an hour to reach the carousel, and then we took the lovely tram from the terminal to the rental car building. It must have been about 11:15 or so by the time we got there. We waited in line to get our car. They tried to give us a Chevy Malibu, but when I couldn’t get my knees under the steering wheel I ask for something else. Ended up getting a Dodge Charger. Yes, that’s what I said, a Dodge Charger. And it’s even red! It was nearly Midnight by then and the lot staff had to nudge us to get out of the lot so they could go home.
It was nearly 1:00 a.m. local time by the time we got to our hotel, the Days Inn by Wyndham Maui Oceanfront. It really was a lovely hotel, super clean, and very friendly staff, but as with pretty much everything in Maui it was way more expensive than you would think it should be for a Days Inn. At any rate, we had a really good sleep.
Guigon Travels 