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Published: June 16th 2022
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We head off for a leisurely morning stroll along the Kapalua Coastal Trail which winds its way along the shore north of here. The Trail takes us past the calm, sandy and clearly very popular Kapalua Bay Beach.
We pass a building hanging off the cliff face, which, if Google Maps is to be believed, is the Kapalua Cliff House. Apparently it's a wedding venue, and it seems it's been here since the 1940s. The reviews don't however seem to mention anything about weddings, most just noting that it's a good place from which to jump off the cliff. I suppose you could include this in the ceremony, but I think the bride might want to have a few lifeguards on hand if she's wearing any of the wedding dresses I'm used to seeing. One review says that the ladder and rope down into the ocean have been removed by a neighbour, who's also hired a security guard to keep people out. I hope that doesn't include the happy couples. Anyway, this doesn't seem to be working too well; there are lots of people here launching themselves off the rocks. And what neighbour? The only buildings anywhere near it are
part of a fancy looking resort, and even they're not very close to it. I wonder if anyone's vetting these reviews.
The hotels along here all look like they probably cater for the very rich and famous. We thought the price we were paying for our little apartment was eye-watering enough, but a quick look at Booking.com suggests its small change compared to this lot. They "start from" (I think that's code for the price for their worst room) north of 1,500 Aussie dollars per night, and work their way up from there to a jaw-dropping "from" 10,000 Aussie dollars per night - I think that might have been the room with the large chandelier that we saw from the path, although I'm fairly sure that wouldn't have been their worst room, so add a few grand to the 10,000 to lay your head down in that one for a few hours. These places aren't even on the beach; it's quite a hike from here if you want to feel the sand between your toes. Maybe the rich and famous consider lying on the beach to be beneath them, in which case I'm more than happy that we continue
to live out our lives in obscurity.
The landscape gets a lot more rugged and windswept as we head northwards. The Trail takes us through a rocky headland, much of which is apparently roped off to protect the island’s largest known colony of endangered wedge-tailed shearwaters. The cliffs are black and steep, and the rocks are sharp, and it’s not too hard to imagine this being a relatively recent lava flow, which it probably is. Next cab along is Oneloa Bay Beach, which isn’t nearly as protected from the gale as Napili and Kapalua, and the surf here’s rolling in hard. Perhaps unsurprisingly there don’t seem to be too many people down on the sand braving the elements.
We head off up the road for dinner, and are immediately left wondering whether Maui is afflicted by the same shortage of locals willing to be wait staff as we are back home. The young lad who leads us to our table couldn't be more than twelve, and the lass who takes our food order might be thirteen at a stretch I suppose; the other waiters all seem to be from South America. Anyway the food’s excellent if not perhaps
a bit unusual, well for us at least. My main is a local specialty called Moco Loco which is a beef burger topped with fried eggs and gravy sitting on a bed of rice, with a side serve of macaroni. Very tasty.
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D MJ Binkley
Dave and Merry Jo Binkley
Maui
Beautiful beaches