Saturday – Lahaina, Maui

Saturday – Lahaina, Maui

I was up for a really early breakfast and joined Anita and Dorothy; we anchored while I was having breakfast and it was soon time to be in the lounge ready for the tender for my full-day tour to Hana. I began to have a tummy problem and even though I went to the restroom on the pier, the two hour drive before our first comfort stop was pretty uncomfortable. I said many thank you prayers when we finally got to a bathroom! It was only a rest stop, where I did get a pretty picture of the vegetation, then we got to a little pop-up cafe called “Halfway to Hana”, where we got coffee: great! - and only $1.50; life is better after a bathroom and a coffee! We had stopped by the side of the road many times, lots of pretty scenery, but through the bus window it was no good for pictures. I got good pictures of a large, beautiful farm which is Chinese and we stopped to see several “waterfalls” but all very tiny.

Maui is beautiful and striking in many ways – lots of lava hills, some very tall; there are 5 volcanos on the island – 2 extinct, 1 dormant and 2 active. It’s also a place of incredibly beautiful rainforest. Lunch was at a hotel halfway through the trip: simple buffet with iced tea.

We have had all the seasons today, except snow and hail – and the weather changes every half hour or so. As I write this on the bus, it’s raining again.

One very unpleasant aspect of today was that we were travelling over about 4 hours of the trip on “roads” which were barely wide enough for 1½ cars, in a “school bus” tour bus, hugging the side of a mountain with no safety rail, hundreds of feet drop and meeting cars coming the other way. Our driver was brilliant but also crazy! 

Lunch was at the beautiful Travaasa Hotel, Hana: a chicken buffet. Lovely gardens everywhere.

 There is a large cross way up on the hill overlooking the property; this is in memory of the previous owner of the site.

When we were off the awful road, we had probably 10 miles of dirt/rock road, so our bones are pretty well rattled but that was really fun. Our tour was supposed to be 9 hours but about 5 hours into the trip, in the middle of nowhere, a car tried to overtake us and hit the back of the bus, then instead of moving forward, he reversed and ripped the bumper off! So we drove to the next viewing spot, with the car and Asian family following us. Then we had to wait for the police, so we were about 1¼ behind schedule. Being a Saturday, just like in Sydney we got stuck in traffic once we got back into Lahaina, which made us even later. Back at the dock, I managed to get a couple of pictures of Lahaina before I had to get on the second last tender back.

We stopped at a little church, “Missionary Church in Kaipahulu”; the guide told us to wait quietly, then he whistled a distinctive whistle a couple of times and two beautiful horses came trotting up from the paddock. This is where Charles Lindburgh’s grave is located. The inscription on the grave is Ps139:9 “If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea,”

Because of the delay, I didn’t have time to try to find wifi, but I believe the guide said they only have AOL access on the island, not wifi. Coming back to the ship on the tender was very exciting – there’s quite a surf in that area and we had waves crashing over the bow, bobbing around crazily! Being so late back, dinner  tonight was a BBQ on Lido deck.

My new word to remember today: popoki – cat!!