Insurance paranoia had taken a firm hold by the time we landed in Maui. We didnt know what we'd be liable for if we declined the car company 3rd party policy (despite doing so in Hawaii) so we relented, and immediately added a third onto the rental price, bugger!
It took the best part of an hour to get out of the airport and drive round to the former whaling village of Lahaina. Tall fields of sugar cane and spiky pineapples grew along both sides of the road as we headed from the east to the north west coast. Soon we were driving along the coast road, the ocean to our far left and tall arrid mountains rising up to our right.
Lahaina Shores where we were going to be based is a condominium block, run like a hotel and we had an apartment all to ourselves!... luxury after the shared facilities we were becoming used to. Maui is the top holiday destination for American visitors to Hawaii and Lahainas streets were a throng of vacationers - a marked contrast to the more laid back feel of the Big Island.
Some exercise was required so we drove round to the north east coast to trek the Waihee trail, a 2 hour walk each way into the verdant lush hills.
On the way back we drove up the Iao Valley, a popular spot giving great views up into the towering misty peaks either side of the valley. All in all, pretty picturesque but we were itching to move on to our next destination, Maliko Gulch! Back home we'd watched a documentary were surf collossus, Laird Hamilton and his buddies had rode the monster waves at 'Jaws'. We'd made a note that they'd left from a jetty in the mysteriously named gulch and decided that we'd go there, fully expecting Laird and the other demigods / nutters to be sat around 'talking story' when we got there. No such luck! We found the gulch, and it was kind of weird, the place was deserted. Never mind, we just knew we'd see Laird filling his car with gas or in the mall or something while we were on Maui.
Kapalua Beach proved to be a nice place to chill out, just up the coast from Lahaina and without the fierce wind and sandstorms at Slaughterhouse Bay, the sweep of sand was busy but not too crowded. The local marine life wasnt so approachable though, I was harrassed by an open mouthed box fish and a gnarly looking Moray Eel!
After getting the low down on the sea life it was time for some high adventure and a trip to Haleakala mountain which dominates the south of the island. The long and winding path up to the visitor centre at the summit is reckoned to be the road with the greatest ascent in the shortest distance in the world, and the thin air when we reached the top left us in no position to argue.
There were several walks inside the huge summit crater, some lasting several days, but we set ourselves a turnaround time and descended down the steep, cinder strewn trail to walk the valley floor. Thousands of years of erosion had worn huge gaps either side of the crater and, as the day became warmer, great billows of white fluffy cloud seeped in giving the whole scene mystical air. We'd barely reached the start of the trail on the crater floor when we had to turn around and soon found we'd made a wise decision. The 'Shifting Sands Trail' had been aptly named as we scrambled upwards throuigh the loose rock, our pace greatly reduced by the altitude and as the sun dipped below the summit high above us, it became increasingly cold. After struggling for what seemed like an age, we finally emerged back at the carpark, a high wind whipping the heat away from us - and we do these things for fun!
The sunset was beautiful, a complete covering of cauliflower like cloud stretched out in every direction, the sun bathing everything in a fiery orange glow. As soon as it disappeared we made our way back to Lahaina, back to the condo for a no alcohol beer (bought mistakenly, honest!) and comfort, bliss!
The Haleakala adventure was followed up by a trip along the Hana Highway, a 3 hour drive along a serpentine road, much of it single lane and continually confronting bridges spanning the many folds in the terrain around the coast. Twist followed turn passing waterfalls along the way. Eventually we reached the Seven Sacred Pools, a chain of waterfalls and plunge pools cascading down from the might Haleakala mountain. Although the scene was undoubtedly spectacular rain had started to fall and it was starting to get dark so we returned to the car and did the whole trip again in reverse, this time seeing nothing more than the patch of road illuminated by the headlights. As usual, we'd packed in as much as we possibly could and had thoroughly enjoyed Maui, the laid back land of hippies, surfers, sugar cane and souvenir hunting tourists, but the ultimate surf destination was still ahead of us - the famous North Shore of Oahu.
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