The plan for today was to head to the top of Haleakala Crater if it was clear or to head to Lahaina and the west side of the island if it wasn’t.  When the sun rose (we’ve been getting up before the sun does), there were a lot of clouds so the west side it was.

There was a small rain shower as we were leaving Kihei but the sky towards Lahaina looked much brighter and the rain was light and warm so we were glad to be heading in that direction.

Once we reached Lahaina, the sun was shining so we parked the car and went to look for some geocache.  The first was hidden at the Old Lahaina Prison and it was supposed to be easy to find as it is hidden in an easily accessible spot.  As hard as we lookers couldn’t locate it but when I looked at the geocaching website, someone else had denoted that he found it today but it wasn’t where it was supposed to be.  Oh well, maybe next time.

Our next stop was the huge banyon tree in Lahaina Square. It is impressive and covers an area of about 200 feet.  It has 12 major trunks and it was like being under a huge umbrella. Just outside the square was a geocache in another tree – we found a parcel in the tree trunk but to our surprise, it was a package of sunglasses and not the geocache.  A little more looking (under the watchful eye of one of Maui’s police officers) and we had the cache in hand with no questions from the officer.

We then visited the Old Lighthouse to get a photo of it for another geocache requirement and then headed further west looking for Maui’s only store that sells Maui produced yarn (no one really thought I would pass up a chance to shop for yarn, did they?) The shop was a small store selling the products of different Maui artisans and everything was made on Maui.

Yarn shopping completed, it was back on the road heading along the coast.  It was drizzling again, but not enough to stop us from getting out of the car to look at the view – which was spectacular.  I kept a watch for whales but didn’t see any sign of them today.

After a while, we saw a sign warning of a narrow, windy road and made a few comments to each other about how we were already on one.  Hah! little did we know…

Apparently, we had inadvertently crossed into the no go zone for rental vehicles.  The road became one lane with very few pullout and limited visibility. We figured we should turn around but the question was where could we find a spot wide enough for our little car to do that? By this time, the rain had increased and we had to pass through a bit of water (maybe an inch and a half) at the bottom of one of the hills.  After a few hair-raising experiences with passing other vehicles coming down the hill we were climbing, we found a spot wide enough to turn around. The downhill trip back to the gully wasn’t too bad and then we reached the spot where the water was on the road.  Oh-oh, in the 15 minutes (more or less) that we had last been there, the water had risen about 9 inches.  We made it through although my adrenalin was pumping and, once we got back to the two lane road, pulled over to eat our picnic lunch and then head back to the condo for some relaxation. We did stop on the way for a  short stroll along a nature sanctuary boardwalk on the way back but didn’t walk the full length of it.  Only saw a few birds who appeared to pose for the cameras – maybe they are used to people.

After dinner tonight, I did some gecko stalking.  Just for you Lizz.

Tomorrow we are off on our tour to Hana.