Sorry, I've taken lots of photos but haven't had much time to get them loaded up. I haven't even finished the Mexico ones, I think the ones I took heading back into P.Vallerta were the most interesting.
Then our plane broke down and we were delayed 5 or 6 hours (lost track of time) so we missed every connecting plane to Honoloulou. (You can imagine the steam coming out of Daniel's ears. It was incredibly frustrating.) So we ended up having to stay overnight in LA (LA has to be the worst introduction to the US you can get, it is possibly the worst airport in the world, and that opinion even comes from the Yanks.)
This meant we were a day late into Hawaii and Dan missed out on Pearl Harbour I'm afraid. Mum and Georgie had to spend the night alone in Honoloulou, but Mum still managed to find food and some shops (of course) and when we met them they were sporting all sorts of purchases.
So we met at the airport and flew straight into Maui. Dan went off to pick up the car (another drama as they gave Dan the car seats and told him to fit them himself!!! - more steam) the car is actually a Dodge minibus which Dan refers to as the 3 tonne truck. It is actually quite comfy to travel in and has every mod con you could think of - there are buttons to open the big sliding doors automatically and each seat has their own little climate control situation and there are more cupholders than you can imagine. Dan's 'wrong side of the road' driving is improving every day.
But here we are.... Kihei (said Key-hey) right opposite the beach. James has been waking at 5am, which seen opportunistically has given me the opportunity to be out at sunrise so I took some pictures the first morning for you.
This is looking back at the units we're staying in.We get a little bit of beach view from our window.. we can see a lovely sunset. It's a bit 70's in the unit but clean and functional and not a bad way to stay really. Airconditioning and fans.
Another view, and the groovy windmills on the hill behind us. The cloud formations are interesting, the clouds only seem to sit over the really high peaks and always look so big and fluffy.
More windmills. This is the view as you cross the road infront of our complex. Pretty stunning.
As I walked closer to the beach I could see a couple more islands. And what I didn't get a photo of is the top of a little volcano sticking out of the water - Molokini, it's where they go snorkelling for the green sea turtles. I love looking out at that, it's just so volcano looking.
Some more of the Kamaole beach in front of us. This one is a little rougher than Kamaole Park I and II (Park II is where we went in for a dip yesterday), but they are all really nice.There are an amazing number of people out jogging and walking at this time of day, the sun zooms up the sky really early and it heats up. The trade winds come through after lunch and the cool breeze is really lovely. But in between it can be quite hot. (Not hot and muggy like Mexico though, just hot)
Nice? I think there are lots of nice scenes to look at like this - glad I'm not taking film photos. I love looking at the volcanic surroundings. But we've all commented that it doesn't look like we'd imagined. I think we all imagined more green and more coconut trees. There aren't a terrible amount of coconut trees on this part of the island. Lots of trees and scrubby bits like in the photo though.
Looking back towards the mountains behind the units (but a bit further down the road) a nice sunrise.
Oh and again. Should probably delete one.
Ah we found a park and I gave Jamie a play on the swing, which he loved, and eventually I taught him to sit back in the swing. And yes, it was cold enough for him to wear a jacket, but it did get warmer quickly.
Walking further down the beach front through Kamaole park (I hope I'm spelling that right). This is a little life saver hut.So Friday morning we got up, well everyone else got up and we went off to the farmers market in search of cheap local fruit. We found the market, but cheap fruit *cough cough*, umm, yeah.
Here's Georgie drinking some coconut milk, which she quite liked, but James, he loved it.
We stopped to give James a bottle at morning tea time. We stopped by the side of the road and here was the view.
Granma and Georgie went for a"quick" walk on the beach, while James ate and then I had to go hunt them down.
Here they are. Gee, glad they didn't go too far away. The next problem was they didn't seem to speak Australian hand signals for hurry up and come back.
This was the view the other way on that beach.
Yep, they're still up that end. I ended up shouting.
Finally!
So we went on to head back up to near the airport at Kahului and managed to find a big mall. (I know, you've died of surprise there.) This was all intentional as Mum was looking for specific presents for people (which I can't mention right now) and seeing as she'd blethered on about it for days and days we thought we'd take her to get her presents right away so it was done. We spent the whole day at this mall - as you can imagine. And Dan really wasn't having a very good time, until he found Macy's had a sale on and suits were dirt cheap. So he ended up with a three piece suit and was very happy. Well he was extra happy as the guy forgot to ring up one of his pairs of trousers *and* Dan had managed to get him to throw in a Macy's bag for free.
We found a toy shop that was closing down and got some bargains. Mum got her stuff, and me, well I got a $6 book. hmmm think I lucked out. Oh, not sure what Mum got for herself. (although it's a few days later and I know she has something for herself now)
Our concierge lady rang while we were out shopping and said she'd managed to get us tickets for a luau for *that night*, we had to hoof it to get back and pick up the tickets and get to the luau. It cost a fortune, but we wanted to see one.
Here's the sunset infront of the luau.
And here are the dancers. Jamie just went mad when the drums started. (Not a good sign, we really don't want a drum player in the family.) He loved the beat and the dancing. Georgie was impressed with the girl dancers and the fire twirlers.
Hanging on for dear life. She wanted to be there... but the look on her face while she was holding on was priceless.
Unfortunately we didn't see any whales. The season is Dec 15 to May 15 and we took our chances on seeing some whales. But it just wasn't to be. Still the trip on the boat was nice and the scenery was amazing. Just a shame about the whales.We're off to take a driving trip to Hana today. I think that part of the Hisland is more "Hawaiian looking", so I'm hoping to get some leafy photos. I'd like to go to the top of the extinct volcano here, but the kids are sick of being out of routine and the hot sun takes its toll so maybe we'll spend the day in a mall or looking for tacky souveneirs for you all. We'll see.
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