Our second morning, and I awoke, thoroughly bored with
sleep and excited for the day.
Since we were only 100m from the beach we skipped our
morning showers in favour of a swim. We took a short cut to the beach,
discovered that, on Maui at least, there isn't really a rule for pedestrian
crossings (you either walk out and cars stop, or they don't), and were greeted
by a fine morning sea. The sparking ocean lay before us, inviting us into its
tepid waters. We most definitely took up that invitation, and considering the
temperature was already in the mid twenties before 8am, it was an invitation
most welcome.
We had our first encounter with a local when a turtle
breached for air mere metres from where we were splashing. Despite the fact that
we both could have stayed there forever something was beaconing us - as we
looked towards the shore, past the golden sand and the lightly swaying coconut
trees, there she was; Haleakala. The 10,000ft gentle giant that dominated 75%
of Maui.
Adventure was calling, but first supplies. In our togs
we wandered down to Kihei, found a very bizarre market before concluding that
the supermarket was probably the way to go. Stocked up, packed up, and ready to
go we headed off in our little Spark, the car that we were advised no to take
up the mountain. But with the words of my father ringing in my ears, we scoffed
at the warning from the car company; "Rental car... thrash it!"
Before we hit the road however we stopped at the famed
ABC Store. Now you have to understand, this was Laura’s forth time to Hawaii,
therefore I had heard countless tales, talk of beaches, boats, Piña Coladas,
but none more than the ABC Store. The ABC Store turned out to be everything
Laura had said it was, so I’ll let her explain more in a future blog. For now
all I’ll say is we fuelled up on Starbucks chilled drinks and were off.
Having spent three week’s in The States and time in
Iceland in the last year, left hand driving came back to me like the annual
skier hitting the slopes again for the first time that season. The combination
of Laura’s navigation skills, the fact that there were only four roads, and our
destination being constantly visible made getting to the mountain road a piece
of ease. And so we started our assent. Into, the clouds… damn clouds. The
higher we climbed the more inevitable our lack of view became. Alas, we trudged
on, the tiny car struggling and our ears popping. The scenery bizarrely changed
between Australian eucalyptus forests, to Canadian pine, to Taranaki farmland.
You could have fooled yourself into believing you were in a number of
locations. That was until visibility became all of about 10 metres. I
drastically reduced my speed, although I didn’t have much choice in our tiny
vehicle, and continued into the unknown.
We reached the top. Not that you could see the top of
course, but we knew we were there as the road ran out. Before we braved the
freezing gale outside we decided to have some lunch; corn chips, salsa, and
turkey wraps, classic Lars-and-Laura-in-America-combo.
We couldn’t delay any more. Out we got, walked around
the building at the top, and promptly got back in… down we go.
On the way back down the temperature rose from 9ºC to
a toasty 36ºC, that’s quite a change. Beach here we come. The first beach we
came to was super windy, being on the exposed side of the island we were
getting battered by the afternoon Trade Winds. Never mind, it was still sunny,
the sand was still golden, and the rainbow’s were still… wait a minute…
rainbows, that means… We ran back to the car for shelter, and speaking of
shelter we decided to head back around to our beach, on the sheltered and
apparently permanently sunny side of the island.
Kihei welcomed us back with sunny open arms, so a swim
it was.
That evening we wanted to watch the sun set, and the
western facing beach was the way to do it. 6pm came and the sun turned fiery, juxtaposed
against the deep blue ocean, and the black and white cloud covered mountain. It
was quite a sight. Witnessed whilst bobbing amongst the waves, nothing else
mattered.
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| Morning Swim, and curvy horizons. |
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| "I'm taking this car up the mountain" |
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| 10,023 feet. Does that mean there was someone with only one leg? |
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| Goodnight. |
Labels: Hawaii 2016
