Day 17 : Oahu – White Sands Beach, Happy New Years Eve!

We went to bed pretty late last night after recounting all of our adventures in Maui to Steph.  We slept in and had a lazy morning of just hanging around and chatting.  After lunch, we headed out to check out the beaches on Steph’s side of the island.  We initially attempted to go to the man-made lagoons at Paradise Cove, but there wasn’t any parking.  That place fills up fast!  We did get to see the new Disney Resort that they’re building right there…it’s going to be spectacular (I’m imagining my sister, brother in law, and nieces will visit it one day! J).

Since the lagoons didn’t work out, we headed to White Sands Beach instead.  It’s a beautiful family beach that has views of both Diamond Head when you look to your left and mountains when you look behind you.  We hung out there until the sun started going down, and made our way back home.

Because our plans are to head to Waikiki early in the morning, we decided to hang out at Steph’s to watch the most amazing display of fireworks off of her balcony.  The fireworks started at 630 p.m. and went all the way till 1 a.m..  It was the craziest, most incredible amount of fireworks going off all at the same time that I’ve ever seen.  Apparently, Hawaiians have a long tradition with going completely insane when it comes to setting off fireworks. 

In between trips to the balcony, we sat in the living room and played a game of Taboo (I played on both teams – I won!!!).  It was a great way to start of 2011!

Day 16 : Road back from Hana, Twin Falls, Hookipa Beach, Paia

We got up early, loaded up our stuff, and were on the road back from Hana by 730 a.m..  We stopped at a few of the overlooks...the drive is pretty windy, but absolutely beautiful.  Our main pit-stop we wanted to make was at mile marker 2...the Twin Falls.

The Twin Falls are two falls that go into a pool area.  You hike back behind a fruit stand to see the falls.  We had read that there's another hike to more pools and waterfalls up from the Twin Falls, so we headed up to the Twin Falls, and after spending a few minutes with many people there, we headed on up to the top of the trail.

The trail up past Twin Falls was very wet and slippery, but the hike was well worth it.  We left the crowds at the bottom of the falls and had our own pool and waterfall to ourselves.  The water was pretty cold, but extrememly refreshing.  We went in together, and then took turns swimming to the waterfall and jumping in from there and taking pictures of each other.  It was such a fun and relaxing adventure!

We were starving by the time we made it back to the car, so we headed into the town of Paia and ate at the Flatbread Company.  One of my food cravings has been pizza, and the family that stayed at the first B&B with us had told us that we HAD to try out Flatbread Company for their pizza.  They apparently have them in the northeast of the states, but all of them are different.  They use only organic and fresh grown ingrediants, so the pizza selections were tailored towards whats local on the island.  It was seriously the most delicious pizza ever.  Chris agrees, so that's  not just coming from a pregnant ladies perspective!!

After lunch, we headed to the Ho'okipa Beach to watch the wind surfers and kite boarders.  They were amazingly good, and the beach was so beautiful.  After soaking it all in for awhile, we walked up to the rocks that sit at the shore of the beach to look over them and saw the most amazing sites.

Sea Turtles.  Giant Sea Turtles that looks like rocks in the ocean because they were easily over 6 ft wide.  They were feeding on all of the rocks that lined the beaches (which made for an excellent surfing beach as well with all of the breaks).  After seeing huge sea turtle after huge sea turtle, we got our camera out and tried to capture some of the amazing sites.  We had so much fun just pointing out the sea turtle after sea turtle, and you could see them completely feeding on the rocks when the tide would shift.  So cool.

As the sun went down, we headed back into Paia for dinner.  We ate at the local fish market.  I had the wahoo fish sandwich with wasabi butter on top and Chris had the ahi tuna sandwich.  The fish is locally caught and tasted so fresh and was absolutely amazing.

For dessert, we got the local gelato.  It was such a perfect end to such a perfect day.  We headed to the airport after dessert, and made it safely back to Oahu.  Maui was breahtaking, beautiful, and so much fun.  Highly recommended!!!

Steph picked us up from the airport, and we stayed up till the wee hours of the morning chatting about all of our adventures from the holidays.  Such a perfect day!

Day 15 : Seven Sacred Pools, Pipiwai Trail, Red Sands Beach, Hamoa Beach, Koki Beach

We woke up this morning a little after 8, with about 3 hours of sleep.  We made our oatmeal, had more coffee than normal, and headed out to the park to do the Seven Sacred Pools and the Pipiwai Trail.  We decided to do the trail first.

The hike is a little over 4 miles out and back and it is definitely ranked up in our top three of most amazing and beautiful things we've ever seen.  We started the trail at the top of the Seven Sacred Pools, and climbed up into the mountains.  The trail was so green and lush, and there were overlooks all over the place where you could see mini waterfalls cascading into great pools.

After numerous pools / mini waterfalls, the trail turns into a magnificent huge bamboo forest.

From there, the trail opens back up and you cross through a few streams and when you're almost to the top of the trail, you can look up and see three sepearate large falls cascading down the steep cliff of the mountain.  The view is breath-taking...I think I said "oh  my gosh...how cooool" about 1000 times.

The trail ends at the bottom of of one of the waterfalls with a small pool.  This waterfall was one of the most magnificant we've ever seen.  I had to hold onto the rocks to look all the way up to see the top of the waterfall. 

 

We sat up there, at our lunch, enjoyed the scenary for a bit before heading back down.

From there, we went into the Seven Sacred Pools which are tiered pools (there's actually more than seven) that go from the bottom of the trail all the way out into the ocean.  We took a dip in one of the pools (brrrr...), warmed up by sitting out on one of the rokcs, and then headed to see the beautiful beaches of Maui.

Chris's favorite beach was Koki Beach.

Mine was Red Sands Beach (which you had to hike through a cemetary and some back looking trails to even GET to, and then hike down the mountain TO the actual beach!)

And a hugely popular one that is also beautiful  was Hamoa Beach.

All three were stunning in their own rights.  Waaaay different than our Clearwater Beaches!!

Running on empty, we headed back to our Inn.  The previous night's ... misadventures ... all came rushing back when we pulled into the driveway.  The resident girl that lives on the premises came out to talk about it all with us, and I had a few messages from the owner on my voicemail as well. 

Apparently, an ex-coworker had come into our room, thinking it was empty, to watch TV.  They filed a police report against her, and told us they could move us rooms if we felt better, and they refunded us our previous nights stay.  We were entirely too tired to try to find another place to stay (and our place was actually pretty nice by Hana standards), and we both felt pretty comfortable staying again, so we agreed that was fair and just stayed in the same room.  We made dinner and fell asleep shortly before 9.

Day 14 : Back side of the road to Hana, Wainapanapa State Park, scary night

Today we got up, did our group breakfast at the B&B, packed our stuff up, and headed out on the road to Hana.  Staying true to Chris and Kara style, we started on the road to Hana backwards.  Apparently you’re supposed to go around the island from North to East, but we went from the South side to the East side.

It rained some along the way.  The road is so windy and so narrow…and so steep in places.  Chris was driving about 35 miles an hour, and my stomach literally felt like I had dropped from riding a roller coaster ride instead of being in a little car.

Start of journey...who knows what's over this hill...could be a cliff to the ocean for all we knew!

Me : "Babe, keep your Eyes on the ROAD!"  Chris : "They are!!!"  Hmmm...I think I win this arguement!

Funny Husband.

Beautiful views along the way

condition of the REST of the road backwards to Hana.  The road...oiy!!!

Beautiful little beach at our pit / pee stop :-).

We saw the island of Molokini that we had snorkeled at our first day off in the distance.  It looks like a little crescent moon.  The coast line was absolutely beautiful, but man oh man…that road.  Just SO windy and SO bumpy!!

Mid-afternoon, we finally made it to Hana and our place we were staying at.  It’s a cute place…kitchen, living room, separate bedroom, and has a great view.  We unloaded our bags, and headed up to the Wainapanapa State Park to see their black sand beaches.  It was so beautiful.  We hiked up on the blow holes that the huge rocks have created, and then went down to the lava cave on the beach and finally made our way down to the actual beach.

Breathtaking!!!

After we finished up there, we headed to the general store in Hana and bought stuff to make dinner for the next few nights.  My pregnant belly settles much easier with homemade food versus eating out.  Ordering from menus in new places is stressful!

We went home, made dinner, watched some of the Tuesday night football game, locked up our cabin, and headed to bed.  I was a little restless and had a hard time falling asleep, so I tossed and turned for a few hours.  Just as I was dozing off, the scariest thing happened.  At 11:40 p.m., the front door opened, someone shined a flashlight around our living room area (we were in the bedroom, but the bedroom door was open), then the door slammed shut.  I shook Chris HARD and said “SOMEONE’s IN HERE!!!” to which he ran into the living room, turned on the lights, and nada.  Chris had pushed a big box fan against the front door before we went to bed though, and it was slid crookedly into the middle of the living room, so we’re both positive it wasn’t my imagination.

I called and emailed the owner for this place, and I got nothing.  All of the windows in the living room aren’t covered with blinds or curtains, so Chris went around and took the forks and knives that were in the kitchen, and hung up all of the extra bedding to cover the windows.  After that, we moved our mattress into the living room on the floor, each grabbed a frying pan, and Chris grabbed a few knives and put them on his side of the bed.

After we stopped freaking out, I thought about it rationally.  It was definitely someone with a key, who most likely thought the place was empty, saw our stuff, and took off.  They didn’t attempt to intrude once they realized we were there, and they didn’t take anything.

And I looked around and started laughing.  There are forks and knives with sheets and blankets all over the walls, and we’ve got frying pans next to either side of us on the bed.  Don’t mess with the Hart’s…we’ll beat you with a frying pan!!!  Seriously, if the ‘intruder’ came back, we easily could’ve over taken them because they would’ve laughed so hard at how we ‘hunkered’ down and protected ourselves.  We had also slid the coffee table in front of the slider door, and put the daybed mattress in front of the front door.  Hey, we felt safer…silly in the morning, but safer at the time!

We didn’t sleep much though…I think it was almost 5 a.m. before we finally managed to doze off…which means today’s adventure’s carry into tomorrow…

Day 13 : Haleakala Crater and dinner

This morning I woke up at 5 a.m. ready to go!  Chris…not so much, so I stayed in bed until a little after 5, and then started updating this journal on our trip.  We’re staying at a bed and breakfast, and our breakfast was ready at 8 a.m..  We met and chatted with a super nice family from the Baltimore area, and ate a delicious breakfast of fresh fruits, yogurt, cereal, toast, and egg sandwiches.  We sat at the table and ate and chat for an entire hour…yummy!!

We headed off to the Haleakala Crater, which goes up to an elevation of above 10,000 feet.  The road up the mountain was long, narrow, and windy, and takes a little less than an hour to get from the base to the top. 

We stopped on our way up to do one of the overlooks of the crater valley.  It was crazy, we were up above the clouds…you could see them rolling in on the base of the crater floor.

It was super windy and this was taken by setting my camera on a timer.  Ignore my hair in Chris's eyeball.

Clouds rolling in over crater valley

Chris hiking back in the clouds

After that, we went up to the top and saw the overlook.  You can see the Big Island of Hawaii from here, and we could actually even see the snow-capped mountain peak on one of their big mountains over there.  The top was really windy.  It actually was pretty cold at the peaks of the craters altogether, they say it generally drops 3 degrees for every 1000 feet in elevation, so the top of the mountain is generally 30 + degrees colder than the beaches.

The island in the distance is Hawaii - if you look closely, you can see the snow capped mountain peak!

Crater view from the top

We dressed pretty appropriately in our layers, but saw lots of people in flip flops and tank tops that were shivering.  We ate lunch outside of the visitors center, and then headed to the sliding sands trail in the valley of the crater.  It was a 5.2 mile round trip hike…downhill the whole first half, and uphill the second half. 

The views of the crater and the mountains around there were breath taking.  I didn’t expect it to be so pretty.

We hiked down to one of the mini crater peaks in the valley to take a look inside.  Chris and I wanted to roll down the crater, but there’s lots of signs and rules on staying on the trail.

We made it back to the base of the mountain by about 5 p.m..  We had planned initially to stay up there for sunset, but we didn’t want to do the windy drive back down to the base in the dark.

We came back, showered, and headed to dinner in the town of Paia.  After dinner, we stopped at the Mana Food mart and got some fro-yo Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, which made me really happy.  We had attempted to stop by a place and get some crepes, but the wait was too long, and my pregnant body was too tired for that nonsense.  Ben and Jerry’s hit the spot!

(Internet connection is entirely too slow for me to care that these pictures aren't in the right spot...sorry!)

Day 12 : Maui : Molokini and Iao Needle

We woke up  at 3 a.m. this morning, ate breakfast (I need breakfast within an hour of being awake, regardless of what time it is), and headed off to the airport to catch our plane for Maui.  It had poured a lot of the night, and I was up most of it, worrying that we would either sleep past our 3 a.m. alarm time (it’s the first time we’ve woken up to an alarm in over 2 weeks), or that our flight would get cancelled because of the rain.  I tried to not worry and just sleep, but something about having an alarm to wake up to makes me sleep pretty uneasy.  I think I finally fell asleep at about 130 a.m..

We arrived in Maui at 6 a.m., got our rental car, and headed off to the B&B we’re staying at.  We dropped off our bags, and then headed out to the Maalaea Boat Harbor.  Our first ‘touristy’ thing we’ve done since getting to Hawaii…we booked a trip with the Pacific Whale Foundation (non-profit) to go out on a big catamaran to the islands of Molokini and Lanai to do some snorkeling.  Our check in time was 745 a.m..

The seas were a bit rough from the storm that was still passing through in the early morning (although the weather the rest of the day was absolutely gorgeous), so Chris and I took a seat in the back of the boat when we boarded.  I’ve never gotten sea sick before, but I’ve never been pregnant on a boat before either, so we didn’t want to take any chances.  Well, that was the idea anyways…

About 30 mins into the trip, people started flocking to the back to toss their cookies overboard.  Since I have a queasy stomach with this whole carrying a baby thing, we moved up some in the boat to the covered area.  I started feeling somewhat bad…not awful, but it was hard to shake the people running back and throwing up.  Chris thought I’d do better with some fresh air, so we headed upstairs.  The captain started speeding up a little bit right as we hit the stairs, which was fine for Chris, but I lost my balance a little bit, and had to stay hanging onto the handrails in the stairwell.  Chris went across to the front, and I decided it was too rough, and I was heading back to our seat.  Chris joined after a minute and asked if I was okay, and I told him that was a bit too much, but that I wanted him to go upstairs and enjoy the fresh air and the scenary and I just wanted to sit for a few.  We went like that (him coming down to check up every few mins, me sitting downstairs, looking outside) for awhile, and then someone lost it and got sick over the TOP balcony all down the window that I was looking at.  That definitely pushed me over the edge and I had to go join all of the seasick folks in the back of the boat.  Chris had come down just in time to see me getting up, so he helped me to the back (I’m so off balance without 8 foot waves and a slippery boat as is!), and I barely made it before getting sick.  I apparently almost threw up on 4 people and Chris managed to tell them to move quickly enough.

That was the end of the mis-adventures though…after I got sick, I felt a million times better, and we were about 20 mins away from the island of Molokini.  We had rented wet suit tops from the boat people, so we got those on, and jumped into the water as soon as we got there.  Holy coldness!!!  But, it was so incredibly amazingly beautiful.

Clear waters of Molokini.  This is with my little point and shoot camera.  We left the nice Nikon safe on land!

We both agreed that we’d never seen water that clear, a reef that formed, and a place where we could have such clear visibility.  The only way I can sort of accurately describe the water and the beautifulness we saw underneath it was that it was what I would imagine swimming in a huge aquarium would be like.  It was that clear, and that beautiful.  We did two 45 min + snorkles, then came back on the boat, headed out of the cove of the island for them to grill us up lunch (chicken, veggie burgers, and hot dogs along with pasta salad), and to do some whale watching.  The whales were going crazy just outside of the cove…flapping, breaching, all kinds of stuff, everywhere you looked.  It was great lunch time entertainment!

After lunch, instead of bearing the rough seas to go to the other island of Lanai, we headed back into the cove in Molokini.  Chris and I did another about an hour long snorkel run to end off the day.  We saw so many beautiful amazing fish, all different sizes, and TWO eels!!!  Chris thought they were so cool and wanted to hang out and observe them.  I wanted to say ta-ta, you don’t bite me, I won’t look at you, and be on my way.   Chris won, but he stayed closest to the eels!

Nice snorkle mask face I have!

On the way back to Maui, we had so many whales entertain us.  The seas were calmer, and we were going with the waves, so it was so enjoyable.  We got back into the port at about 3 p.m..

From there, we swung by Costco to get water and some snacks, and then headed off to hike the Iao Needle.  It’s a big mountain peak that the Hawaiian’s used to use as a lookout point back in the 18^th century to see when enemies were coming.  It was a short, steep hike, and the views were, as typical in Hawaii, amazing.  There’s a stream that runs at the base of the needle, and Chris decided he wasn’t done swimming for the day, and ventured into the waters.

I managed to stay awake long enough to eat and shower, and then I crashed.  I don’t think I made it to 8 p.m. tonight!