Maui

Another early start for the flight to Maui, the last of the islands we are visiting. It is two volcanoes joined together by a low lying area of flat land where not surprisingly the airport is situated.

Sea both sides in the distance taken from the national park. 

It is an older island and hence has also developed some lush green vegetation and beautiful valleys as you can see here

along with the aptly named 'pinnacle rock'.

We then travelled on to a pretty town called Lahaina for lunch before arriving at our hotel further north on a lovely beach. We were particularly lucky with our room which faced the sea, possibly because we had booked two extra days there.

Actually able to unpack properly as 5 nights and then went and explored the beach and watched the sunset ceremony based on old traditions where the lights are lit and then the young man

 takes his flare up to the top of the rocks makes a prayer to the gods and then dives off to find his bounty.

We had foolishly (at my request!) signed up for a road trip round the coast of the larger volcano departing at 7.15am, I really should know better! Called the Road to Hana it passed a surfing beach 

and then proceeded to wind along a very picturesque coast 

with wildlife if you can see it

and a banyan tree

where the roots drop from the branches and a special eucalyptus, the trunk is not painted honest!

apart from the notice at the top.

through Hana a small town with some famous inhabitants (no doubt because it is rather difficult to get to) and on to another black sand beach where we had a provided picnic lunch.

The road goes down to a dirt track and when it has been rainy we wouldn't have been able to continue but fortunately all was well and once the road became metalled again we reached the winery, now you understand why I wanted to go!!

Some rather strange wooden sculptures greeted us 

along with a more domesticated version of the wild animal, and even more strange wine, pineapple not as sweet as you might expect and a more ordinary white and red, not tempted to buy though. It had a lovely old fashioned general store selling all sorts of tourist stuff magically not too tacky.

The road goes round the base of a large volcano called Haleakala rising to some 10,000ft and that is where we headed the next morning with the whole group as it was the last day of the main tour.

Passing sugar cane fields with Haleakala in the background

and the only sugar cane factory in Hawaii, 

once reduced it is shipped off to California and refined into C & H sugar no prizes for guessing what the initials stand for!

There is a useful ranger shop with lovely wooden bird sculptures note this one

and they cultivate the silver sword            

which dies after flowering shown by this rather fine sculpture

They also have two flags flying one is fairly obvious but the other with a union jack and 8 stripes ( 8 islands) is the state flag of Hawaii showing the Captain Cook connection, must be a trivial pursuit question!

The top of the mountain is a national park and the crater is enormous and apparently used to test lunar/Mars rovers by Nasa, as it was mid morning by the time we got there the temperature although cool was not as cold as our evening visit to Mona Kea. The air still a bit thin but as veterans of a higher peak we decided to climb the highest part we could and were rewarded with some good shots of both the crater

and some people setting off on a horse trek with the coast line far below.

Met up again to say good-bye to most of our fellow travellers, sadly no free drink at this meeting not even orange juice, then travelled into Lahaina for supper to test out the local bus service as we need to use it for our whale watching expedition tomorrow.

At the entrance to the dock is another banyan tree, the second largest in the world and all of what look like trunks are in fact roots of one tree!

We saw whales! A mother and baby and a competition pod where 2 or 3 whales are trying to impress one female. We did see a whale rise right out of the water but since they do it without warning no photo I'm afraid but quite extraordinary to see them so close to the boat.

Went and treated ourselves to very fine lunch afterwards looking over the sea before going back to the hotel for some sun for me and a walk for Gail. Quiet evening, nice sunset.

Last full day and we walked in the morning to the Hyatt regency at the other end of the long beach to see the

yes penguins! South African in origin and therefore apparently able to cope with the climate although they are in a central atrium which is I suspect kept cooler in the very hot weather.

Time for a little sunbathing before heading back to Lahaina to pick up our cocktail and sunset cruise, well it was our last evening. The island has many colours from the sea

This also proved to be an opportunity to watch some whales although not as many as we had seen on our first trip but it did give me an opportunity to photograph Lanai one of the smaller islands.

This is where Bill Gates got married some years ago and it was recently purchased with some help from the British taxpayer by 'Mr Amazon' Larry Ellison! The side visible is rather barren but I understand the other side is a bit better, however I was pleased to see the rain falling on another evening!

 

 We followed up our cruise with another fine meal and were still in time to catch a bus back, timing is everything!

Fortunately wangled a room for the day as we were not due to leave until 7.30pm, on the third floor and at the back of the hotel but with this view of a very blue sea and coast further north.

It also proved to be a magnet for birds once they realised we had some crumbs from left over crisps and biscuits, this one should be familiar.

One last sunset

and a meal in the bar of the hotel, surprisingly not over-priced and then the long trek home began and some 24 hours later we arrived back at Heathrow  pretty tired but with some amazing memories,a brilliant trip. Aloha.

Big Island

Two short flights back via Honolulu then on to the Big Island which is the newest island and the one with active volcanoes,tall enough to have snow, showing through the clouds on our journey.

 We arrived on the wet side of the island although fortunately not raining at the time 

and travelled to the National Volcano Park for our first view of a crater with an active section as you can see.

Most of the current action comes out of the sides of the mountains these days and as they are shield volcanoes they don't have great ash cloud eruptions like for instance Mts Etna, Fuji and of course Krakatoa. These start some 18,000 ft below sea level and so Mona Kea at 14000 feet above sea level is one very big mountain. Mona Loa is the biggest land mass of any of the mountains and still growing and currently the second highest and there are 5 volcanoes on the island.

After viewing the crater we walked through a lava tube made when the top of the lava cools and solidifies quicker than the underneath which keeps moving for a while eventually leaving a tunnel once the eruption has finished. Most are not this big that we have seen.

It also solidifies around trees which then get destroyed by the heat leaving smaller upright tubes.

We then travelled around the south of the island which is the furthest south you can go in the USA apparently. Past a black sand beach plus turtles

The hotel is in Kona country so the coffee should be good.

Up to catch a 7.30 check-in for a helicopter ride over the volcanoes and the north east of the island. Just stunning!

The crater we saw from the ground

Then an even more active one

the lava flowing into the sea creating an even bigger island!

we even saw moving new lava but harder to photograph succesfully.

Flew over Hilo with some rain before flying round amazing valleys cut by water and very green because of the rainfall.

Before heading back to the sunny side of the island, intotal about 1.5 hours of flying, amazing.

Pilots get younger and younger!

Early evening we caught a boat to go down the coast showing some of the layers of lava now being eroded on this side of the island

to view the place where Captain cook was killed, 

they thought he was the manifestation of a god who visited and then went away for years, unfortunately he had to return due to problems with his ship and so they realised he wasn't a god but did have metal which was not available before in the islands and so he was killed. 

Dinner on board and sunset not bad way to end the day.

Quiet morning no alarm! Visited the local church

which was the oldest on the island set up by missionaries in 1820 who travelled on this boat,

well a full size version!

Quick lunch then donned long trousers and picked up various layers and joined a trip to the top of Mona Kea. We stopped for dinner at 7000 ft, at this 'farm' ,

fortunately slightly better accommodation round the back but only tented so needed those jumpers,already much cooler and surprisingly hungry for 4.30pm! We then continued right the way up to 13800 ft, stopping briefly to see a 'silver sword' plant and a cinder cone showing the iron content in the lava.

We were warned about the effects of altitude apart from yawning, not the place to run or even walk fast until you've got used to the lack of oxygen. 

However the views of the various telescopes and hills where people had been skiing

this is the summit about 14 feet higher than we were!

and then the sunset made it even more worth while.

Fortunately they provided really warm parkers and gloves which meant only your legs got cold!

We then travelled down to 9000ft to watch the stars and were welcomed with a view of the international space centre and another satellite flying past.

No pictures I'm afraid camera not fancy enough to have the long exposure needed. The sky is just covered in stars I've never seen so many even in quiet areas of New Zealand which I thought was pretty amazing, it was hard to distinguish the constellations we all recognise because of all the other stars in view. The position less than 20 degrees north of the equator means that they get not only the northern hemisphere but a great deal of the southern hemisphere too. We had a good view of Jupiter with some of it's moons and a new galaxy forming in the sword of Orion.

Home late and early start for flight to last island of Maui but oh so worth it, an amazing island.