Maui and More

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Before I start today’s journal, let me set the scene for you as to where we are right now. We’re sitting at Starbucks, sitting yummy café latte and enjoying the luxury of the rare air con (or at least we were when we started this entry). Life here is finally a little more chilled and the pace of life finally is matching up to the Hawaiian style!!

Today’s blog details our little adventure to Maui, the original capital of Hawaii. Our trip started by waking up at 4:30 am (with Tim working till midnight) to catch our ferry ride in the town harbour! Everything was well organized by the Hawaiians and very efficient. I was simply ecstatic with the ferry ride and I couldn’t wait to board. The ferry was much bigger than we expected to be, it was almost like a mini-titantic and on board it felt like a futuristic space ship ride. This super ferry has a children’s playroom, flat screen TVs everywhere, adult/teenager computer games room, little souvenir ship and little kiosks through out the ferry.

But my initial excitement was rather soon replaced by the nauseating feeling! Yes…it’s that magnificent experience called motion sickness, to add on top of it Captain reported that the ride would be rougher than usual due to the weather.
So half an hour into the ride, Tim helped me dashing off to the ladies room and I am glad to report that although it was a close call, I did make it in time! Oohoo!! Unlike most of the other passengers onboard! Just to make you comprehend just how rough the ferry ride was, they have staff members on board to clean up after ‘accidents’ and help delivering paper towels, water to those much in need. Also by every kiosk counter, they offer free motion sickness pills. Thank goodness there were plenty of sick bags everywhere. At the end we found ourselves on the carpeted floor and simply rocking with the ferry. It was unbelievably helpful, almost like back into the cradle with the gentle rocking motion.

After 3 hours of rather a eventful ride, we finally arrived in Maui. Quoting what Mark said, “ Maui is like the ugly sister of Oahu”. Not sure if we would agree with him, it’s a different kind of beauty I guess, more rural and less commercial.
The 3 hours ferry ride was soon followed by another 4 hours of road trip, driving through Maui to test the device. Traveling definitely has its ups and downs, just like my stomach content on that trip. Oh…then we had McDonalds for Lunch - God help me!

So with every bad, there is the good. Even with our tight schedule on the island, that road trip allowed us to “see” (more like seeing through the car window of what we could’ve done if we had more time - the dangling carrot feel) most of the touristic sights. The beach was very different to Oahu, it was mostly filled with black sand - a rather quaint sight.

The following day it was once again filled with more driving and we head straight to the once active volcano crater. It took us about 3 hours of driving to summit the mountain, the drive itself was horrid and the road has been recognized to reach such elevation in the shortest amount of distance, so you can imagine how windy it was.

We learnt some interesting facts while we were up there and from the tower, we could see Big island in the distance. Big island is the only Hawaiian island with an active volcano, so it’s the only one still growing.

Later Tim and his colleague Taryn drove on further (while I bid them goodbye, because I had enough of the driving and chose aircon hotel room to scenery). According to them, the road got more windy, but they did manage to catch a beautiful glimpse of the waterfall.

The 2 days trip soon ended, and this time instead of the original excitement for the ferry ride I was dreading it. Maybe because this time I was well prepared and made sure both Tim and I took some motion sickness pills, we had a much more pleasant trip back.



The part of the Maui trip that I did without Tina was not such a great experience. Taryn and I were supposed to be testing the positions of the intellipoints on the device. (An intellipoint is a point of interest that plays giving you info about your immediate surroundings - like “on your left is….”) In fact that is what we were doing on the road trip of the previous day. Anyway, this time we were taking “the Road to Hana”. If I thought driving up Halekelae’a (sp) in the morning was a tough windy experience, that was nothing compared to this “Highway”. The longest straight stretch of road could only have been about 70 or 80m. It just twisted and turned and double backed like a mad thing, with at road narrowing almost as soon as it when into a double lane. We only got half as far as we had intended before we ran out of time and enthusiasm. But we did manage to see some amazing vistas and the odd waterfall. Unfortunately Tina had the camera, so I can’t post any pictures of them.
The return from Maui marked the end (or just about) of all the Tourism Radio work. So getting back to O’ahu really felt like a great release. That night we went out to a ‘fancy’ dinner and a club to try and celebrate. The restaurant was called ‘Duke’s’ at it was right on the water’s edge in Waikiki, so although it was night, it was still a splendid setting. Duke Kame-something-hopi or whatever his name actually is, was this pretty incredible guy. He was a multiple Olympic gold medalist for swimming, he popularized Hawaiian surfing, he was a movie star, rescued 10 people from drowning after their boat sank and ended up as sheriff of Honolulu for 20 years. Quite a set of achievements.
After dinner, we went to our first American night club. Not much to report on that though - it was a bit disappointing. I thought Friday night in Waikiki would be pumping, but it wasn’t. I’ve never seen so many bouncers roaming about a club, and certainly not so many huge ones. Big samoan types! Anyway, we were pretty tired anyway, so maybe it was us.

Saturday was the first real day of freedom since arriving in Hawaii (even though we had a big summary style meeting scheduled for the afternoon, so it wasn’t a full day of fun). So that’s where we are now - Saturday morning, chilled at Starbucks, then to Lanikai beach.

Well, not really, as I’ve only gotten round to finishing off my part of the blog standing at the airport about to leave for Spain on Monday evening, so I might as well include Sunday’s excursions here too.
Taryn needed to be at the airport before 7am on Sunday morning, so Tina and I drove her to the airport with the idea of spending as much of the day out of the house and doing stuff as possible. Once we’d dropped her off, we drove to Waikiki beach to look for some surfing lessons! We donned some thin wet suit tops, it was so warm though, it wasn’t to keep the chill off, even at 8am in the morning, not sure why we had to wear them actually. Anyway, we put on the shirts grabbed two long boards and after some very minor instruction from the surfer dude, we jumped into the water and paddled out to where the waves were breaking. And it was awesome! Tina was very skeptical about being so far out (but the water was very shallow), but she managed to stand up on her very first wave. (Admittedly the surfer guy gives you a boost just as you catch the wave to make sure you have enough speed, so we both started very well 😉. It was a fantastic experience, despite the aching arms, that set the tone for a great day. After being a little grumpy from getting up too early, we were happy, smiling and ready to take O’ahu by storm!

Next we went drove east to the Waikele outlet stores - an open air mall filled with factory shops where everything is discounted. Tina found heaven at the Nine West shop, but somehow from our 3 hrs there, we only managed to leave with a pair of jeans and a knitted top. A lucky escape for the credit cards. The original plan was to go on to the Byodo-in buddist temple that is make entirely without nails, but instead we drove up to the north shore. We went back through Hale’iwa for more shave ice, then spent the rest of the day at Waimea beach, lolling in the swell and sleeping on the beach. A fantastic way to end the day.

That’s it for Hawaii. Disappointing that we only had two or three full days together for sightseeing, but definitely a beautiful, amazing place that we’d love to come back to and appreciate more. Despite being a tourist hot spot in America, it has still managed to maintain a low key, relaxed vibe that isn’t too comercialised. Well, that’s not really true of Honolulu, but Kailua and the rest of the island definitely isn’t. Next stop London for Tina and Barcelona for me before heading off to Rome! Exciting stuff.

Till then, Aloha
Tim and Tina

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Comments

[Rosemary]

Surfing
Your Australian aunt, ever ready to impart knowledge, would like you to know that Duke Whatsit is reputed to have intoduced "Hawaiian surfing" (as it was called in my youth)to Aus and there is a statue of him on the headland at Harbord. When I googlerd him I find this is now disputed. This quote for a Sydney Morning Herald article "Historian Mark Maddox argues Kahanamoku chose to give his famous 1914 surfing exhibition at Freshwater Beach because at nearby Manly too many surfers were dropping in on his waves." So there ya go - sic transit gloria. We've enjoyed reading about your travels - and look forward to more

[The Monties]

WOW!!!!
WE are so enjoying all the detailed descriptions of what you are up to - it makes fascinating reading and WE feel WE are right there with you - having fun, getting sea-sick....... WHAT MEMORIES, NE!!!! Lots of love.