Maui

After a massive 30 minute flight, we arrived in Maui for 8 nights.  Straight away Maui had a very different feel to it - might sound a bit odd, but it didn't feel quite as Hawaiian.  It was much more commercialised than the Big Island and in many ways you kind of felt like you were in California.

We'd  looked into things to do on the island and the first on the list was to go humpback whale watching.  A few people had told us how good this is on Maui so when we got there we booked a couple of trips, with the first being nice and early - at sunrise!!

We didn't have to sail too far from the shoreline before we saw the whales - there they were spouting, breaching, diving and all those nice things some whales do.  It was pretty amazing to see so close up and was worth getting up very early for - that said we were less than impressed when the "captain" made the inspired decision to leave a couple of whales that were close to the boat, just so we could go somewhere quiet to drop a hydrophone.  Clearly he was an idiot.

Anyway, our second trip was better than the first.  We spotted  many more whales and it was made even more special by 3 whales consecutively breaching right in front of the boat.  It was quite spectacular seeing these massive animals forcing themselves out of the water and doing it so gracefully.

Fin slapping

Breaching

We also shared the boat with the whitest person we've ever seen - now I know it's sun cream that's made him so white but even so.  It kept Rob amused and I know we shouldn't laugh, but seriously check him out!

Next came a trip along the 'Road to Hana'.  This is one of the "must do's" in Maui, so we thought we should.  The road itself is reported to be extremely narrow and gnarly, so we were expecting something pretty extreme.  It wasn't at all - to be honest it wasn't as narrow as a road we'd driven the previous day and similar to a rural road back home - all in all, a bit disappointing really.

Heading to the red sand beach - on the Road to Hana

The road has a lot of one lane bridges and stop points to view the numerous waterfalls, but not much more than that really.  The town of Hana itself isn't anything to shout about, but we continued through to Haleakala National Park where we saw the seven sacred pools that lead down to the ocean.  This was a pretty stunning view.

One lane bridge

7 sacred pools - but you can't see them all!

On our third morning of getting up at stupid o'clock, we drove for about 90 minutes up a dormant volcano called Haleakala to see the sunrise.  It's not often we'd say this, but on this occasion a 3:30am start was totally worth it.  We got to about 10,000 feet above sea level and were nicely above the clouds ready for something amazing.

We got to see a sunrise like we've never seen before - it was without doubt the best sunrise we'd ever witnessed, simply beautiful.  What made it even more memorable was the temperature - even with four layers on it was absolutely freezing.  We thought we would get frostbite is Hawaii - now that would be weird!

As well as all this good stuff, we managed to squeeze in some visits to some of the golden sandy beaches that Maui has to offer for a bit of snorkelling and just to relax.  One of our favourites was called Ul'ua and we went there a few evenings and just watched the sunset whilst watching the whales spouting on the horizon.  Nice.

So that was our Maui experience.  It was good but, but we didn't enjoy it as much as the Big Island.  This maybe because it was a bit more commercial and it seems to have lost some of the Hawaiian feel or possibly it was just less of our thing - who knows.  All we do know that it was a nice warm place to spend a few weeks of winter!

Keawalai church

Iao State Park

Anyhoo, onto Oahu next - the home of Honolulu and Waikiki as well as the big surfing waves on the north shore... Will we ride them?  I doubt it, we'd probably drown!