So – we’ve been home for a week and I still have to write about our last day on Maui.

THURSDAY, MARCH 27

We had been told about a couple of stores in Paia that might have milo wood items for sale.  By now we had figured out that most stores didn’t open until 10 a.m. so we figured we might do some geocaching on our way.  The first cache was a fairly easy find but not big enough to leave our trackable in.

We drove to Paia by way of Makawao (the cowboy town).  It was a beautiful morning and the scenery was breathtaking.  We saw a few old churches, but this I think this one was the most beautiful.

We reached Paia about 9:15, still too early to shop so we drove along the Hana Highway to Ho’okipa Beach viewpoint where we were rewarded with the sight of surfers and a few turtles (too far away to photograph – hmmm maybe I need a better camera?).  Apparently, you can sometimes see turtles on the sandy beach in the evening at this beach.  Something to keep in mind for the next trip!

After soaking up the sun at the viewpoint, we went back to Paia – and found that one of the stores we wanted to visit (and that had quite a few small wood decorations) was not going to open until 1 that afternoon as it was undergoing repairs.  We found the other store, but not any items that caught our eye (or that we could afford).

Heading back to the condo, we found one more geocache that the trackable would fit in (and got my first mosquito bite of the trip). We had to wait out another car that was parked right by the geocache and we were both parked in a no parking zone.

The rest of the afternoon was spent packing, repacking, checking the weight of the suitcases with the electronic scale in the condo office and leaving our perishable items with the attendant at the clubhouse – the food bank/kitchen picks up the food that is left (even opened containers) and makes use of everything.  I think this is a great idea – we often have stuff left over when we are on vacation and we can’t bring it home with us.

I was playing on the computer, waiting for the time to leave when something new on geocaching.com caught my eye.  A cache had just been hidden about 5 minutes up the road and hadn’t been found yet – something we could look for on the way to the airport.  We were the first ones to find it!

Returning the rental car was simple, then we caught the shuttle for the airport.  When we got there, Air Canada had not opened the check in lines yet  and even though we were 3 hours early for the flight, the line up was long.  Finally got to the bag drop (where we found that our bag had gained 4 lbs between the condo office and the airport – luckily 0.5 lb under the weight limit still) and then off to find the departure area.  By this time, we had only 1.5 hours left to wait *s*  There wasn’t much to see at the airport and we were glad to hear our flight called.

Remind me NOT to book an overnight flight whenever possible. The idea that you can sleep on the plane is ridiculous – on this flight we had a child who enjoyed playing with the call button, all flight long! Once in Vancouver, customs was accomplished easily and we headed through the miles of corridors heading for the domestic terminal and a Timmy’s coffee *g*   Our flight to Victoria was less than half full and we were greeted by rain when we landed.  After searching for our car (we had noted where it was parked but then immediately forgot during the vacation), we opted for the Brentwood Bay ferry to cut a little driving time off.

We enjoyed our vacation in the sun and we will definitely return to Maui in the future.

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 26

We didn’t have any plans today so we decided to see where we ended up. The thought was in the back of our minds to see if we could find the visitor information center in Kahului (great timing, right? when we have 2 days left *g* ) For the record, we forgot to find the visitor center once we got to Kahului!

We took a different road in to the town and, while we were driving, noticed that the ‘Iao  (pronounced eeyow)  Valley was not covered in cloud this morning. That made our decision for us – we would go and see the ‘Iao Needle. There wasn’t much traffic on the road and we paid the parking fee of $5.00 and found the last parking spot between 2 poorly parked cars – luckily, we have a small car.

The walking trail is not very long but it climbs the hillside and there is a great view from the top. On our way back down, the rain started falling lightly but it was warm. The trail takes you down beside the creek and it was amazing to see that the waterfalls which had been so full a few days ago were now drying up. The end of the trail was an area planted with native Hawaiian plants, including taro, bananas and guavas.

While driving to the park, we noticed a small museum – the Bailey House Museum. It looked interesting so we stopped for a look. The museum is run by volunteers and wasn’t big but was fascinating, especially the Hawaiian section on the main floor. While we were looking, the lady at the desk told us that there was a small hula performance starting out in the yard if we would like to watch.

The performance was wonderful – very traditional hula (no, there were no grass skirts or skimpy tops). There were 4 participants – 3 girls and one older woman and they were students (one of the ladies said the girls have been taking classes since they were small). The ceremony started with a chant and then one of the girls started to play a ‘drum’ and the other 3 were dancing – it was fantastic and more like what we expected when we heard there would be a hula demo at the condo. The performance was 15 to 20 minutes long and left us feeling like we had seen something special.

It was close to lunch time and we were looking forward to fish and chips. Yesterday, the concierge at the condo phoned around looking for a restaurant that served fish and chips without egg in the batter. She finally found one called Coconuts so that was our destination. When we got there, we asked our usual question about eggs and were told that the batter had eggs and they would not be able to make it without. Oh well, guess we will go to The Rock Cod when we get back. Second choice, pizza. We head to Pizza Hut and ask about the dough. The woman says she thinks it has eggs but she’s not prepared to find out for sure. Never mind, we’ll go elsewhere. We finally end up at Round Table Pizza where they are very helpful and actually go and read the ingredients on the packaging- success!

Supper, a walk on the beach and laundry done – one more day to enjoy the sun (did I mention that it was 90 F today?). We leave at 8:30 on Thursday night so I will update on our last day’s activities when we get home.

Finally the day for the 60 minute complete Island tour with Blue Hawaiian Helicopters arrived. We were so happy to see clear skies over most of the island when we went outside.

Of course we were early so we drove around Kahului a bit before we decided that was a crazy thing to do with all the traffic around so we headed to the heliport.

A while after we checked in, we were called to the pre-flight briefing area where we met the other 3 people (a family from Chicago who were happy to be out of the cold weather) who would be on the same flight. The briefing was straight forward and didn’t make me nervous (or at least any more than I already was). This was my first ‘real’ helicopter flight – at the Great Barrier Reef we were only in the air for about 10 minutes.

Soon we were called and placed in a line in the order we would board the helicopter. I was first *gulp* and John was after me. Was I surprised to find that being first put me in the centre of the front seat, right between the pilot and John. Other than the fear of touching some of the controls while we were in the air, I was happy with our seating.  John had booked the tour on one of the helicopters with the big windows so we had an awesome view.

Our flight took us over a lot of the areas that we had seen from the ground – the Haleakala crater, the road to Hana and the west side of the island which, unfortunately, was cloudy so we didn’t get to see the waterfalls there (maybe next trip to Maui  *g*). We did fly over the ocean looking for whales and we saw a mother, calf and her escort. Pretty cool!

It didn’t seem like an hour when we headed back to the heliport. Once there, we were offered a chance to buy a copy of our flight and we couldn’t resist. It will be mailed to us and will be a great memory of a wonderful tour.

After we changed out of our dark clothes, we drove to Lahaina to look for a carving made of a local wood called Milo. Unfortunately, all the things we really liked were bigger than we wanted.  Oh well, 2 more days to look.

Tonight there was a BBQ at the resort’s clubhouse, complete with a hula demonstration.

Have I mentioned that there is a mynah bird that likes to imitate car alarms?  Made us jump the first time – now we just laugh and hope it’s not really our car making noise.

Oh and last night there was a pretty nice sunset, without too much cloud. We walked down to the beach and sat on some rocks while waiting for the show to start. On the way there, we saw a dog wearing doggy sunglasses and he didn’t mind!

SUNDAY, MARCH 23

The top of Haleakala was covered in cloud when we got up so we headed to the Maui Ocean Center, at Ma’alea Bay.
I loved all the exhibits but my favorite had to be the honu (Hawaiian for turtle). They had a couple of young ones on display as well as 3 or 4 adult ones. The enclosure could be viewed from above or below the water and it was so neat to watch them stretch up to breathe and then go to the underwater observation area and see how gracefully they swim.

I think John’s favorite might have been the eagle rays and stingrays that were in the observation tunnel area. We had one stingray pass over us while we were in the tunnel and it was massive.
To our surprise, we found we had been at the ocean centre for almost 3 hours (and that was before I found the massive gift shop!)

On our way back to the condo, we stopped at a craft fair that reminded us of the markets in Mexico. There was even a dusty rooster running around.

We spent the rest of the day relaxing – we’ve been on the move a lot (and our legs were a little sore – either from trying to stay upright in the bus on Saturday or from applying the imaginary brake for most of the trip.)

MONDAY, MARCH 24

The skies were mostly clear when we got up today so we crossed our fingers, dressed in warmer clothes and headed for Haleakala. Once in the car, we encountered some rain but it was fairly light.

We kept checking to make sure the top of the mountain was visible, breathing a sigh of relief as the clouds managed not to envelop it. We made a short detour to find a geocache before starting up the ‘highway’. The first part wasn’t too bad – switchbacks but nothing horrible. We were just about at the park gate when we saw a Hawaiian Nene (pronounced Nay-nay, a goose that is on the endangered species list). We had been told that they weren’t easy to see so we felt lucky.

We stopped at the visitor center on the way up and bought a couple of things and took photos of some small silversword plants. After that stop, the road got a little twistier. The speed limit was 20 mph on most of the corners which were fishhook like turns. We passed one section where someone had recently gone off the road, luckily into the wall side and not over the cliff. The police and park rangers were there doing accident investigation.

We finally reached the summit of the mountain (elevation – 10,023 feet or 3055 meters above sea level). The temperature was 47 degrees Fahrenheit (8.5 Celsius for my children) and there are signs warning you to walk slowly because of the elevation.

There were some clouds looking out to the south and east but the view was still spectacular. We wandered around a bit and then headed down the mountain a bit to the lower parking lot where another visitor center was located and where you could see into the crater, weather permitting.

We were disappointed to find that the crater was shrouded in cloud but we took photos anyway and then went inside the gift shop. While we were looking around, someone pointed out that the clouds were gone and the crater was visible. Everyone rushed out to take photos and before long, the clouds were coming back in. We were pleased to have been at the right place at the right time.

We headed back down after that, trying to go easy on the brakes and transmission but that wasn’t easy to do. We finally got back near the bottom and could smell the lovely scent of eucalyptus from a large grove of trees. I opened the windows and breathed it in *s*

We headed to Kula Botanical Gardens since it was nearby. They had a large number of plants but only about half were actually named. It was a little disappointing…

We spent about an hour there, then found a viewpoint and had our picnic lunch before heading back to Kihei where it was 85 F (29.5 C).

Tomorrow is our helicopter flight!

A couple of photos for you, Lizz.  The first guy is a chameleon that was at the Botanical Gardens and the second is our gecko neighbour trying to attract someone’s attention.