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!

Aloha!

Yep, we know, it's been well over a month since we did any update, so we have some catching up to do! Here is the first of the Hawaiian islands we visited.

We arrived in Hawaii on the 5th February after an epic journey of 3 separate flights from Australia - never again!  As we went through a load of time zones, we went back 10 hours so we actually arrived in Hawaii before we left!  Weird huh!

So, first stop is the so called "Big Island".  We weren't greeted by the hula girls bearing leis as you see in the movies much to Rob's disappointment! But we were greeted by the sunshine and welcoming faces - it felt different already.

Black Sand Beach - can you spot the nude snorkelers!

We spent a bit longer on the Big Island than we originally planned as there was plenty to do and such a variety of things to see.  As we were booking most things at the last minute and accommodation was a bit hard to come by (its the busiest time there), we found ourselves zig-zagging across the island to do stuff.  We started on the east coast in a place called Captain Cook (yep, its named after the legendary English explorer - its where he died actually).  Turns out we did our best to follow in his footsteps on one of the days as we took a really steep hike and foolishly ran out of water on a very hot day - learnt from that one!  Not quite as bad as the older English guy though - he had to be airlifted from the hiking path - all very dramatic!  We did manage to see the Captain Cook Memorial though which was the purpose of hike ...

We also took a look at a funky Hawaiian style church - it was pretty neat and had been decorated in a typical Hawaii colours, so made a change.

The drive over to the west side of the island was nice enough - we saw some humpback whales spouting and breaching in the distance and stopped at a few nice places on the way, with the pick of the bunch being at Pololu, a beautiful lookout....

We arrived in Pahoa to visit the Hawaii Volcanoes National Park where we got to see the Kilauea Volcano erupting, sadly it was a bit cloudy in the evening so the view wasn't as clear as it could have been, but it was still pretty amazing to be so close to such an event.

We heard the locals talking about hiking out on the lava fields to see the active lava flow - as that's one of the things we wanted to see we decided to take the hike. We met up with a polish couple and wandered out there together, it was amazing - we got to see lava oozing down the rocks and into the ocean, popping and cracking as it went, not something you get to see everyday.  The lava beds themselves are pretty spectacular it's quite unbelievable that plants, fruit and many other things continue to grow here, also that people have their homes so close to the volcano and their landscape is entirely a lava field.

We tried out the snorkelling and it was excellent - the water was so clear and we got to see loads of colourful hawaiian reef fish, some came right up to our goggles and took a look inside - don't think they liked what they saw as they moved on quite quickly!  Our second snorkelling expedition was a bit rocky and rough so we got tossed about by the ocean, we managed to scrape our skin against the coral whilst the ocean was throwing us around.  Rob managed to get some sea urchin spines stuck in his little toe - great fun removing them!  We also got to see some Green Turtles too.....

Something we talked about doing before we got here was night snorkelling with Manta Rays, it did sound pretty special - scary getting into the dark open ocean but hey it's something you may only do once in a lifetime so we did it, and yep it was pretty special.  You basically float about and wait for the oceans gentle giants to appear and appear they did, so graceful and swimming so close to you it almost felt like they were going to touch you.  We have got a video clip of what we saw but blogger won't let us upload it - it is on Facebook though.

We took a trip up to the summit of Mauna Kea (a volcano around 14,000 ft above sea level which hosts a number of astronomical observatories), we got to see the sunset and had a tour of the stars, the stars here are really visible due to the clear skies and we saw parts of constellations that we never knew existed.

On our last full day we hiked out to the active lava flow again, this time with a Hawaiian guide so that we could see the sunset and the lava flowing as it got dark.  It was amazing, like a lava waterfall - a very memorable hike.  The dark walk walk across the lava field was interesting and it was amazing how the guide knew his way in the complete and total darkness.

We have really enjoyed our time on the Big Island, it's been very different to what we expected, the people are really friendly and we believe we will return someday and explore some more, as there is a lot more to see.

Next stop Maui - sounds interesting too and a bit more popular with tourists than the big island so we shall see....

Tassie

So after the excitement of the tennis and spending a day wandering around Melbourne, we got a flight across to Hobart to see what Tasmania is all about and to see if it's really any different from the mainland.  In short, it is (a bit).  It turns out Tasmania does have a slightly English feel to it, with some slightly greener rolling hills and roads that are quite narrow in the rural areas.  The people here also seem a tad friendlier that some of the places we've experienced in Australia.

We spent the first few days on the outskirts of Hobart and went for a few drives in the local area.  We popped to Mount Field National Park and looked at a couple of nice waterfalls, took a drive around the Tasman Peninsula which was OK, but probably the most interesting thing was seeing the towns that had been hit hard by bush fires a few weeks earlier.  Sounds a bit weird calling it interesting, but it really was.  The devastation was quite incredible - charred remains of hundreds of acres of forest and peoples houses just gone with only a pile of ash, twisted tin and the odd brick chimney breast left of many homes. Some people are now living in tents or caravans on their land - it was really sad to see.  It was quite odd though that only certain houses were affected - you could get 3 houses in a row and one was completely burnt down but the neighbours untouched.

Mount Field National Park

Part of a fence destroyed in the bush fire

Remains of a home

On a lighter note, we spent an evening on a private nocturnal tour of the Bonorong Wildlife Sanctuary where they have some permanent residents and some which are being
rehabilitated for release back into the wild.  We got to hand feed a number of different Australian animals including Kangaroos, Fidget the albino possum, tawny frog-mouthed owls (Rob was most impressed with their camouflage) and one we'll never forget was the Tasmanian devil.  These little critters have a seriously strong jaw and really won't give up on food once they've got hold - it was a right tug of war!  Lisa got to hold a young wombat in his blanket and she really didn't want to give Trooper back!   We absolutely loved the whole experience.

Us with Bert!

Just fed the kangaroos

Fidget, the albino possum

Trooper

Feeding the tassie devils!

Tawny frog-mouthed owls

Next was onto the east coast stopping at Freycinet National Park where we went on a steep hike to get an elevated view of Wineglass Bay which is one of the bigger tourist attractions in Tasmania.  It was a good view when we got to the top but Rob was disappointed that the view was not what 90% of what the publicity photos portray.  The photos don't mention that they are taken from a completely different viewpoint in order to see the "wineglass" shape and frankly we didn't have time or energy to climb a mountain just to get that view!

Wineglass bay

Bay of fires

Pyengana falls was a good little trip out and the main attraction was OK, but there was actually a nicer forest cascade earlier in the walk.  We did get to see our first snake though curled up on the rocks near the falls - have no idea what kind of snake it was, but we didn't go all Steve Irwin (you know how he finished up!) and left it well alone.

Cascades leading to Pyengana falls

We think maybe a tiger snake?

We then basically followed the main loop road round Tassie popping in to a few places along the way like Launceston, Strahan and Cradle Mountain National Park.  Sadly for much of the last few days on the west coast, the weather really wasn't playing ball and turned out to be a bit bleak really, meaning that many of the things to see were a bit of an anti-climax (like Cradle Mountain that you couldn't actually see on the day).

Dip falls

Our last few days in Australia were spent near Hobart again.  There wasn't too much to rave about in Hobart really - seemed OK, but nothing special.  There was a good lookout up Mount Wellington that gave a good view over the general area, but that was about it.  On the penultimate day we visited a nice little village called Richmond which was pretty much as English as a village could be.  The weather was good, it was very picturesque with its nice brick bridge and river and it also gave Lisa a chance to buy some souvenirs to help add to our already burgeoning luggage!

Richmond - could be in England

So that was Australia.  We were here a few weeks longer than we expected - to be honest, it was probably too long.  For us it didn't have the cliched "wow factor" that we got when we first visited in 2009 and this time we actually found a lot of the Australians a bit rude and somewhat arrogant - not sure why, but we found that happening more often than not.  That said, there have been quite a few highlights and wonderful memories that we'll take with us like our time in the camper van in the outback, the slower pace of life on Kangaroo Island, New Years Eve in Sydney and the tennis to name a few.

I guess the main issue for us is that Australia is just too big.  We have covered thousands and thousands of miles (10,476 to be precise) over about 10 weeks and the reality is, if the main sights and places to visit were in a much smaller area, you could probably do it all in under half the time.  Maybe we're just being a bit picky, but we feel we've now "done" Australia and its not a place we'll be rushing back to in the near future.

Moving on, we're excited to be heading to Hawaii (I know we've been so slack that by the time this is published we'll already be there).  Not exactly sure what to expect, but we're hoping for good things.  Until the next time...

Anyone for tennis?

As you know, the main reason for going to Melbourne was the tennis and we were really looking forward to our two full days watching the quarter finals (daytime and evening sessions) at the Rod Laver arena.

Our schedule was:

Day One
Agnieszka Radwanska vs Li Na
David Ferrer vs Nicholas Almagro
Maria Sharapova vs Ekaterina Makarova
Novak Djokovic vs Tomas Berdych

Day Two
Victoria Azarenka vs Svetlana Kuznetsova
Sloane Stephens vs Serena Williams
Andy Murray vs Jeremy Chardy
Roger Federer vs Jo-Wilfried Tsonga

As neither of us had been to any live tennis matches before, this was a completely new experience and we both thoroughly enjoyed it.  It's fair to say that some of the matches were better than others - and a couple of them were a bit dull (and guess what, one of the those involved Andy Murray!).  That said, the dullest was Sharapova vs Makarova, where Lisa became more obsessed with clocking Sharapova's OCDs - there are so many it's ridiculous and it seems to take her forever to serve.

The best match by far was Federer verses Tsonga.  Not only because the great man was playing, but it was a real 5 set rollercoaster as the match swung one way, then the other. 

The atmosphere in the stadium was also brilliant and it was doubly entertaining as we had a family of Indians sitting behind us giving us their take on almost every point about what was going to happen next!  The match went on for quite a while and Rob was so pleased he got to see Roger for such a long time!  

All in all we we had a couple of really good days and apart from frying nicely in the sun a bit too much, we'd definitely do it again.

Welcome to the Rod Laver Arena

Start of the Williams vs Stephens match

Williams action shot!

Stephens winning the match

The arena at night

Djokovic vs Berdych

Ouch, looks painful - trademark Novak slide... 

And Novak wins!

Federer and Tsonga pose for the press

Tsonga talks to the crowd - not sure what about!

The Greatest in action

Federer applauding Rob's support during the match!

Mrs Federer making a sharp exit as she walked towards us

Rob showing his support for Roj

Cooling down after a day in the sunny seats

Melbourne Southbank at twilight