Tree house in the jungle

Today was mostly a logistics day – checking out of our condo in Maui, flying to Kaua'i, grabbing some groceries and driving to our “tree house” in Wainiha on the north shore of Kaua'i.  We stopped to try some more shaved ice on the way to the house, and a large sign at the stall said “Shaved ice is NOT a snow cone!  We take pride in doing shaved ice the traditional way.”  It was a lot different than the previous shaved ice we had on Maui; this shaved ice was more of a light and fluffy texture like a snowball.  Gavin and I shared the kiddie size, which was about the size of a pineapple (BIG) and we got to choose three flavors of syrup for it. (coconut, mango and blue raspberry!)  Shaved ice was the most memorable part of the day, other than driving through the lovely Kaua'i scenery.  :)

Kaua'i is definitely more jungle and wild than Maui; it felt more like I expected Hawaii to feel.  Maui just felt like a bunch of condos and golf courses where we were staying.  But here in Kaua'i we are right in the thick of the jungle, but a jungle full of chickens, strangely enough.  Evidently several years ago a hurricane let all the chickens loose from a large farm, and they have been surviving and multiplying in the wild ever since! 

We look forward to exploring Kaua'i more tomorrow!

Our tree house. I was so excited when I booked a house on stilts, but when
we got to Kaua'i, we found that ALL the houses in this area are on stilts, so
not as unique as I thought it was going to be.  :)

We are literally in the jungle in this house.  :)

Gettin' leid in Maui. (nobody's heard that joke before... :D )

This morning we got up before sunrise and drove about 45 minutes to the dock where we hopped on to the Maui Diamond, our dive boat for the day.  Our boat captain was funny, and must be really into diving because he had a dive flag painted on each of his big toes.  :)

We were informed right away that we would not be able to dive the Molokini crater because the water around it was too choppy.  I was pretty disappointed, but I guess I’ll have to come back to Maui sometime in the summer when the water is calmer.  Instead we dove a little shipwreck.  It was pretty creepy, as the water around it was kind of cloudy, not good visibility.  Surrounding the shipwreck were hundreds of old tires that somebody had put there in an effort to start a new coral reef.  A few bits of coral had taken the bait, and there were some colorful fish flitting in and out of the tires.  Our dive master looked into the tires for octopus, as they like to hide there, but he didn’t find any.

A rainbow on the way to the dive site.

Diving the creepy shipwreck. That's me in the corner.

Tires to encourage coral growth, or just excused pollution?

Coral growing on the boat.

An Ornate Butterflyfish on some coral.

Our second dive was right along the shore of Maui in a shallow reef with lots of coral.  We got to swim with a sea turtle that was about the size of a dinner platter, and later our dive master found a HUGE turtle the size of a dinner TABLE hiding in a hole in the reef!   We also got to see white-mouthed eels hanging out of the coral reef; they didn’t hide when we approached them like eels usually do, and we finally got to see an elusive octopus hiding around a lump of coral.  The dive master found a whole exoskeleton of a sea urchin in the reef , handed it to me, and wrote on his board that I could keep it.  :)  Let’s see if I can get that back home in one piece through four flights…

A school of Hawaiian Dascyllus fish. As they darted through the water
they made a noise that sounded like "brrr"like rolling your tongue!

A Moorish Idol fish in the coral.

A sea turtle swims by!

It swam right above me; it wasn't shy at all!

It swims away.

Me SCUBAing over a large shelf of coral. 

Coral off the coast of Maui.

Gavin got a video of the sea turtle!

Since we had gotten up really early and were tired from diving, next on our agenda was to take a short nap.  This turned into a LONG nap, and when we woke up it was time to get ready for our evening luau!

We left in plenty of time to get back to Lahaina, but there was a brush fire close to the highway that caused an HOUR delay! The fire was no longer close to the road when we got there, but the delay was caused by “gawker effect;” everybody driving by was watching helicopters carrying big buckets of water from the ocean and bringing it up to dump on the fire.

When we arrived at the Old Lahaina Luau, we were given fresh flower leis made of orchids; I had been excited about the prospect of a real lei all day!  When we were seated, the rest of our table mates informed us that we hadn’t missed much; no food had been served and the show hadn’t started yet.  The only thing we missed was watching the pig be unearthed from the underground oven.  Shortly after we arrived, dinner was served.  Gavin and I had picked seats right in front of the stage, sitting on cushions on the ground in traditional Hawaiian style, and we were also the first to get to go through the all-you-can-eat buffet.  We got to try various Hawaiian dishes that seemed warmed over; the only thing that seemed fresh was the pig they had just unearthed, and that was DELICIOUS!  The buffet also included unlimited watered-down alcoholic beverages.  :)

I was really excited about the lei.  :)

     Gavin and I at the luau. We just got leid. No, that joke never gets old...

The hula show started after dinner, and it was a bit cheesy but fun.  The male and female dancers changed costumes almost every number, wrapping and draping themselves in various leaves, flowers, reeds, and grasses.  I don’t know anything about hula to know how authentic it was, but this is supposed to be the most authentic luau on Maui.

Hula at sunset.

First hula dance of the main show. 

A hula dancer.

Yes, there were guys dancing, too. 

More hula. 

After the luau we headed back to the condo to pack.   Tomorrow we leave Maui for Kauai.

Lazy day at Big Beach

Since I had dragged Gavin all over Maui yesterday through hours of driving and tortured him with a four-mile hike (he really doesn’t like hiking), I let him decide what to do today, which was mostly just relaxing.  :)  We slept in, hung out at the condo for a bit so he could do some computer work (lame :)  ) and then headed to the nearby Big Beach.

Big Beach.

Yes, it is big.  :)

The weather today wasn’t all that warm, so neither of us felt like getting into the water.  We just read books in the sand instead, and watched the humpback whales off shore again.  One flapped its tail out of the water over and over again, at least a few dozen times!

How I spent most of my time at Big Beach:
wrapped up in two beach towels because I was cold! 

But I took off the towels for a couple photos.  :)

I got brave and waded ankle deep in the chilly water, then a sudden wave
snuck up and soaked the bottom of my skirt.  :)

After our lazy beach day we headed back to Lahaina for dinner.  We tried out the Lahaina Fish Company, where our unimpressive dinner was accompanied by a pretty tasty Lava Flow, a Hawaiian drink that is a piña colada with strawberry puree dumped on top to look like a volcano.

We turned in early, as tomorrow will be another early morning for us; we’re going to SCUBA the nearby Molokini Crater – a nearly-submerged volcano crater with a coral reef all around and in it!

Chocolate stalactites, tricking falls

Today was our 7^th wedding anniversary, and we decided to celebrate it by getting up at 6am and spending the entire day in a car. :)  After a brief stop at the grocery store to buy sandwiches and water, we headed to the north side of the island for a day of driving through the jungle, past waterfalls, taking turns over one-lane bridges and on the edge of sheer cliffs.

Our first stop was Ho’okipa Lookout, where our viewpoint above the ocean and beach showed dozens of surfers tackling some pretty impressive waves close to some nasty, jagged lava rocks.

Big waves at Ho'okipa Lookout.

Evidently sometimes they get REALLY big - this ledge was pretty high
off the ground!

Closer to the waves at Ho'okipa Lookout.

A surfer at Ho'okipa beach.

Big waves!  (the ocean AND my giant hair, ha!)

Next we stopped at Twin Falls, the first waterfall on the road to Hana.  A short walk was supposed to bring us to two different levels of falls, but the upper level was closed.  The lower level was a small waterfall into a chilly-looking pool that a couple hardy tourists were jumping into, but it was still early in the morning and a bit chilly, so Gavin and I didn’t follow their example.  :)

We stopped for an early lunch at the Ke’anae village, a peninsula off the mainland where a small community lives.  There is a beach park on the ocean, and as we ate our sandwiches we got to wash the waves crashing on the lava rock formations on the shore.

Ke'anae beach park, our lunch break stop.

Our next brief stop was the Wailua Valley State Wayside, a little pullout where a short walk up a few stairs gave us a view into Ko’olau gap, which is a break in rim of Haleakala crater and a beautiful green valley.   There were supposed to be waterfalls visible, but they were completely dry.  Most of the waterfalls we had seen on this road trip have just been trickles, as it hasn’t rained recently.

Wailua Valley State Wayside.

Our next stop was Makapipi Falls, where the 1 lane bridge above the falls gave us a vertigo-inducing view DOWN the waterfall.  Of course our immature selves had a bit of a snicker at the name of the falls.  :)  (make a pee pee, if you pronounce it the way we were...)

We took a slight detour off the road to Hana to see the Hana Lava Tube.  The lava tube is an underground cave system formed by lava flows.  The stalactites and rare stalagmites were formed by lava rather than by dripping water, which created a some really interesting formations that looked like melting chocolate.  Much of the inside of the cave was covered in sparkling silver and gold, which were colonies of bacteria that live in the dark!   There was no lighting; we just had to take the flashlights given to us when we paid our admission fee.  At the end of the public part of the cave about ¼ mile in, we both turned off our flashlights and were surrounded by absolute pitch darkness, with only the sounds of dripping water.  I couldn’t stand it for too long, since some of the “helpful” plaques along the walk had mentioned hammerhead worms that rappel down from the ceiling, millipedes, and pure white crickets that live in the dark…  :)

There is a maze of red ti plants in front of the lava tube.  We didn't go
through the maze because we were feeling short on time.  :)

Stalactites here look like melted chocolate!

After the Hana Lava Tube, we visited Pi’ilanihale Heiau and Kahanu Garden.  The botanical garden had a number of native plants and trees with plaques that detailed their uses in Hawaiian culture.   Pi’ilanihale Heiau inside the gardens is the largest temple in Polynesia, made of black lava rocks.  We were not able to see much of it, as it was blocked off from tourists by a row of dense trees.

Kahanu Garden's "treacherous" coconut grove. There were dozens of signs
around it warning visitors away from walking under the coconut trees
in case a coconut fell on your head.  :)

Kahanu Garden and Pi'ilanihale Heiau.

Pi'ilanihale Heiau, as close as we could get to it.

Walking through Kahanu Garden.

Our next stop was Wai’anapanapa State Park, where we took a short walk to Pa’iloa Bay, said to be Maui’s prettiest black sand beach.  We didn’t stay long here, as the surf was rough and we still weren’t to the end of our drive, but I found the shiny black sand here really intriguing.

Pa'iloa Bay.

Black sand, blue water at Pa'iloa Bay.

Our final stop was the southern end of the Haleakala State Park, where we stopped to do the Pipiwai hike.  This hike was supposed to lead to two waterfalls and a bamboo forest.  I wasn’t sure how long the hike was (turns out four miles round trip…  :D ), but I wanted to see the bamboo forest, though Gavin was protesting that we were going to get stuck in the dark.  :)  So we took a pretty brisk pace, practically almost jogging the whole way.  The first part of the hike was suffused with the sickly sweet aroma of rotting berries that had fallen from the trees above the path.  The first waterfall (Makahiku Falls), like many others on the road to Hana, was just a trickle due to lack of rain.  We continued on the hike and came across a huge banyan tree.  At this point Gavin wanted to turn back, but a couple coming back the other way said we should at least go see the bamboo forest, so I convinced him to keep going.  :)

Makahiku Falls, like others of the day, was
tiny.

A huge banyan tree on the Pipiwai hike. 

Pools from small waterfalls on the way up to
Waimoku Falls.

A little higher on the path, we started crossing over the Pipiwai stream and over several small waterfalls, and then after crossing one bridge suddenly we were surrounded by nothing but bamboo; we had arrived at the bamboo forest!

Peeking through the bamboo.  :)

The trail up through the bamboo forest.

Looking up through the bamboo.

At this point we decided to keep going to the end of the hike, the 400 foot tall Waimoku Falls.  This waterfall was also thin due to lack of rain, but the height was definitely impressive!  Unfortunately, we couldn’t walk up to the bottom of the falls because it was closed due to flash flooding.

Waimoku Falls.

After practically running back down the trail, we got back into the car and decided to drive down the south side of the island rather than going back up the road to Hana to get home.  It was definitely a good decision!  The road wasn’t too bad, though unpaved in places and very narrow. It had lots of fun curves hugging cliff faces and some of the best views of the entire drive today! We stopped the car and watched the sun set into the ocean, then continued on our way.

Maui sunset.

Our trusty MINIVAN rental. Our rental car company offered a deal of
"cheapest rate available for whatever car we give you," and we got a
minivan.  We refused to upgrade to something else out of stubbornness.  :)

Since we had picked this southern route, it took us a LONG time to get back to our side of the island, so long that we didn’t have time to stop at our condo and shower/change for our anniversary dinner reservation at the Lahaina Grill!  So our sweaty, unwashed selves, me in my dusty Five Fingers shoes, humidity-induced, massive mane of wild hair, eyeliner almost completely sweat off, and Gavin in his dirty hiking sandals and sweaty t-shirt, arrived at the Lahaina Grill and had a fancy dinner among people dressed to the nines in their best Hawaiian dresses and khakis.  :)

Our sweaty, dirty selves classin' up the place at Lahaina Grill.

Gavin and our anniversary dessert, aptly named "The
Road to Hana. The stalactites at the Hana Lava Tube
had me craving chocolate for the rest of the day.  :)

After dinner we drove back to our condo and crashed into bed.   No plan for tomorrow, though I am guessing Gavin will ask it involve some actual relaxing.  :)