Over the Top

From Karin:

In an effort to see every inch of this island, last week's adventure was to go "over the top", a day long driving adventure around the north shore of West Maui.  Confusing?  Not really.  For lack of a better description, Maui roughly looks like a lopsided figure eight laying on its side; West Maui is the smaller loop and the rest of the island is the other, much larger loop. (See image below of our favorite guide map). The east and north coasts of West Maui are not very developed and the drive eventually brings you around to the west coast resort area of Kapalua.  Once there, you head south through a densely populated area of resorts and condos, including the area where we spent our first week on island.

Once again, we had a fantastic time with lots of stops along the way and two kids who were amazing passengers and VERY good sports as we dragged them around.  We stopped at the Turnbull Sculpture Garden where Davis picked out my Mother's Day present, the Kaukini Gallery where we purchased the first gifts for Xmas 2011, the village of Kahakuola and the Nakalele Blowhole.  After we came around the top, we took a late afternoon swim at Kapalua Beach where we watched 5 different beach weddings and ended the day in Kahana at the Maui Brewing Company (we needed beer....). Home to Haiku around 10 pm.  A long, wonderful day.

We live in Haiku, which is right at the bump in the north shore on the big part of the island.  Last week's trip took us "over the top" of West Maui and this week's trip was out to Hana, the eastern most tip of the island and then all the way around the south shore.  More on that later....

A view of the coastline from WAAAYYY up.

Much of this area is ranch land.  Not a bad place to be a cow.

I loved the colors in this photo.

Looking down on the village of Kahakuloa.

Outside the Kaukini Gallery where we could have bought a $14,000 rocking chair made from Koa wood.  The shipping charge was a tad high or else this would have come home with us, for sure.

Looking back at Kahakuloa Head, a 636 foot high hill that we can see from our lanai in Haiku.  Peter has been wanting to "get to it" since we moved in.  Mission accomplished.

This is a silly (and most likely, nauseating) video I shot from the front seat as we ascended out of the valley where Kahakuloa Village is.  It gives you an idea of how narrow the roads are (there are times when you DO NOT want to see a car coming the other way) and how high up we were for most of the drive.  Oh, and the lack of guard rails...real fun for the passenger!

Past Kahakuloa, looking down at the Olivine Pools.  If you look closely, there are people swimming down there.  We couldn't make it down there with the boys.  It just didn't seem like a good idea...

Posing above the Olivine Pools with Kahakuloa Head in the background.

Disclaimer:  At this point in the trip, our BRAND NEW camera decided to stop working.  It kept giving us an error message saying that the lens cap was on even when it wasn't and we could not convince it otherwise.  So, thanks to some nice lady at barefoot-in-maui.com for the following 2 pictures I stole. 

This is the Nakalele Blowhole from above.  We hiked down to sea level over bare, rough lava to get to it.  I'm sorry I don't have the pictures to show us making this descent with both boys.  It was exciting....

 The blowhole doing its thing.  You can actually FEEL it when this thing explodes.  Go to Nakalele Blowhole on YouTube for some great videos of people getting soaked!  We did not get close enough to get really wet, and even if we did, I wouldn't have any videos to prove it.  Yes, I'm a little bitter about the camera.  (BTW...it's better now).