Our Maui Trip Photos

On Friday, the 12th of December, we decided we were going to Maui. On 13th, we were on the 6.00am flight :-). We had been to Kauai (twice) and the Big Island (thrice), but never to Maui. Well, in a sense, we didn't like Maui as much. To us, there wasn't as much 'Squeal Appeal' (which means places that make you squeal) as the other two islands I have mentioned. In Kauai, there is the Kilauea Lighthouse Marine Sanctuary, the Waimea Canyon, the Wailua Falls, the Spouting Horn and of course, the Na Pali Coast! On Big Island, my favourites are the Volcanoes National Park, the Akaka Falls State Park (which has 3 waterfalls and a great great forest-y walk), the Waipio Valley, the Hamakua Coast Drive, the Lava Tree State Park, the natural pools heated by lava....... I can just go on and on and on.
Maui has the Road to Hana, but we came across lots of bad local drivers, who just wanted to overtake and on the narrow road (just one lane going each way), they still push you to a corner, went onto oncoming traffic and overtake. (Yes, in the no-passing zones!) We had a few incidents like that. And the road has about 60 one-lane bridges :) and about 600 bends :). And there's hardly any place to park your car and go and take a closer look. That is what was most disappointing. We had so many beautiful waterfalls, but couldn't see them properly.
From Hana, we went to the Haleakala National Park. People go there to see the sunrise, but we wanted to be different :). So, we went at noon. Now, that is one place that blew us away (literally too!). Its gorgeous! On the road up the Haleakala, you get to touch clouds :). And when you get to the summit, you are actually above clouds. It such a great feeling! And from the summit, you can take a peek into the crater and different cinder cones of the dormant volcano (I don't think its extinct yet). The summit is at 10,000+ feet, so be prepared to acclimatize before you move on. Its super cold too :). On Haleakala, we saw the Silversword plant, which grows ONLY on the Haleakala and nowhere else in the world. It's really a marvel in more than one way! It starts out silvery-green and goes totally silver!!! Metallic, gleaming silver! It's amazing. My pictures don't do them justice.
We stayed at the Old Lahaina House. The room was so CLEAN! Why do I stress on clean? Well, usually, in Hawaii, unless you cough up a fortune, its almost impossible to find a room that you want to stay in. And Maui is the most expensive. So we were happy to find a room for less than a hundred dollars. And even more excited to see how nice and bright and clean it was. The Old Lahaina House is a Bed and Breakfast place. We were very pleased with our experience. And we loved the old town feel of Lahaina. This is one place that makes Maui score some Brownie points over Kauai and the Big Island. We found that we had a choice of places to eat from and they were open beyond 8pm :).
The next morning, we took a drive and simply stopped at places which interested/intrigued us. We also stopped at a place from where we could look at 4 islands (Molokai, Lanai, Kahoolawe and the tiny submerged volcano Molokini). Standing there, we also saw the HUMPBACK WHALES!!!! That was amazing. We then went to the Iao Valley State Park and finished our trip with a visit to the Maui Ocean Center, which is nice too.
Anyway, that's a lot of travel blabber from a person who didn't like Maui as much :). Imagine how much I'll have to say when I talk about Kauai or the Big Island :).