Maui - Volcanoes, Forests and Hula

We had another fairly long day ahead of us once we arrived in Maui. The inter-island flights on Hawaiian Airlines were pretty good even though they were quite short. The flight between Hawai'i and Maui was only about 25 minutes altogether so there wasn't much in terms of in-flight service, but the seats were quite comfortable and there was more legroom than your average economy class flight anywhere else.

Our first stop would be Haleakala, the largest dormant volcano on the island. We had already had the experience of driving through the clouds to get to the summit, but many on the bus had not been up to Mauna Kea and were not used to the idea that the sudden fog and rain was actually cloud cover at 5,000 feet. The summit is actually at just over 10,000 feet elevation, a piece of cake after Mauna Kea! Here are some photos of the drive.

Haleakala is the volcano that forms the larger part of the island. If you look at Maui from above it almost resembles a turtle with the head toward the northwest. A smaller volcano formed the 'head' part and apparently they were once separate islands but lava from eruptions filled in the space between them. The town of Kahului, where the airport is located, is in this valley.

Haleakala does still have some activity, although it hasn't erupted since about 1600 and has only erupted 3 times in the last 900 years. It is possible to hike and even camp overnight in the crater, but there are areas that are blocked off because of potential seismic activity. The area is under constant monitoring and of course the park service has contact with anyone who is hiking or camping. Even just from the visitor centre along the rim, it is quite spectacular.

This is a Sliversword plant. These are fairly scarce on many islands
as the cattle and goats used to eat them. On The Big Island,
there are fewer than 300 plants and they are all fenced in,
especially on the slopes of Mauna Kea.

Once back down to sea level, we headed back to Kahului and veered toward the Iao Valley. This is a state park with the historical significance that it is where King Kamehameha I, who brought all of the islands together under one ruler, clashed with Maui's army and won. The Iao Needle, the most recognizable feature in the valley, stands about 1,200 feet high.

The Iao Needle

When we finally arrived at the Sheraton Maui and got unpacked, it was almost time for our Luau. We were supposed to have the luau and hula show at the Sheraton on the Big Island, but the luau for the 'regular' guests (as opposed to the convention guests who had their own) had been cancelled because of the rain we had already had and the iffy forecast. The convention's luau and show took priority and they wouldn't have enough room to move both shows indoors if it started to rain heavily. So our tour director, Randy, rearranged our schedule to include the luau on Maui instead. We were actually quite happy about that in the end, as we probably got a much better show in a better location.

One of the integral parts of a luau is the food, and a central feature
is the kalua pork, which is a whole pig cooked in a covered pit. Here
the pig is being taken over to where the chef prepares it for
the feast.

You want pulled pork? Come to a luau and that's just what
you get.

Dinner is served before sunset, and just afterward,
the show starts.

Yes, that's Barb learning to do the Hukilau dance

The fire dancer - seemingly as much a part of every
luau show as the hula dancers, but very impressive.

As if we hadn't had enough long days, we were in for another. We had booked the optional tour The Road to Heavenly Hana, because everything we had read beforehand said that it was a 'must do'. The road is actually the only one that runs along the southern part of the island, so that means once you start driving it, you have to keep going; and if you can't go any farther because of floods or weather, you have to turn around and go all the way back. There are no short cuts.

Even though the road is paved all the way, there's a stretch of about 7 miles that is still rather bumpy, especially for those sitting in the back of the (small) bus, and by the time we got past that part, we were looking forward to getting back to the hotel. The road, quite often only one lane wide (which makes passing cars in the opposite direction rather interesting at times) winds around, goes from sea level to the tops of cliffs, runs through a number of very tiny settlements and is the only way to access private land holdings of some celebrities and other rich folk - like the Harrisons (as in the late George) and Oprah Winfrey to name only two.

The road, which is only 52 miles long starting in Kahului, takes 2 1/2 hours to drive without making any stops - and by the way, our tour guide, Ty, is friends with the lady mail carrier who has to drive the entire route 3 times a week, even for only one or two pieces of mail - but our tour probably took closer to 4 hours, plus the hour and a half we needed to get from the resort near Lahaina on the north part of the island to the start of the route and the hour tacked on after the Hana Highway to get back again. So it was a very full day of lots of bus time. The road itself has 59 bridges, some dating back to 1910 and most only one lane wide. It passes through lots of lush rain forest and a good number of waterfalls, and was originally built to get sugar cane from the remote fields to the processing plants.

On our way out, we noticed some land burning off in the distance.
It was a sugar cane field. There is very little sugar cane production
left on Maui, and no processing. In front is a field recently
burned for harvest. It was still smouldering in places.

A Rainbow Eucalyptus tree

The rain forest is quite dense here

Honomanou Bay Beach - our picnic lunch stop

Wailua Falls

Ohe'o Gulch and the Seven Sacred Pools

Because we had had a couple of very busy days, we felt we had earned a lazy pool/beach day, and took full advantage. The resort here was very pretty, with a large, wide beach, Black Rock jutting out at one end providing a good sheltered snorkel site, and a big, meandering pool.

No wonder they call Hawaii the Rainbow State! We were
seeing them all over the place.

Under water at Black Rock. The water was so clear and
the fish very colourful. Monica even saw a sea
turtle here, but couldn't get a picture!

Up next: Kauai, the last three days of our tour and a few more tacked on for R & R.

An Evening on Mauna Kea

Larry had a 'bucket list' visit to Pearl Harbour and the USS Arizona; Monica's bucket list visit for this trip was to see the telescopes and the sunset at the top of Mauna Kea. This is considered THE best viewpoint on the planet for astronomy, above 40% of the atmosphere, which is why there are 13 telescopes at the summit.  Most of them are optical, looking in the visible light range, some are sub-optical (millimeter wavelengths) and some search at the radio frequency level.

The excursion included a pre-climb picnic dinner, parka jackets because it can be quite a bit cooler at 14,000 feet up, and a stop afterward for stargazing. The drive itself to and from our resort on the coast was about 1 1/2 hour. We have realized already that there aren't very many straight lines on any Hawaiian island because more often than not you have to drive around a volcano. And here on Hawaii there are four large ones - Kilauea in the south, Hualalai in the north, and Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea in the middle. Mauna Kea is slightly higher, but Mauna Loa is a lot bigger in circumference, so by total mass it is by far the largest, and also takes the longest to drive around. Here are a few photos from the climb.

This is a cinder cone on the side of Mauna Loa. Lava sometimes
spurts out of cracks on the slopes of the volcanoes, and as it lands
it piles up around the vent and creates a cone.

Just about to drive into the clouds

Our picnic dinner stop was at an abandoned sheep station at just above 7,000 feet. We were a group of 14 in a modern 4 wheel drive tour-style bus and between us and another Globus member group, Cosmos, we had one bus to ourselves. The dinner, in all our cases chicken teriyaki, was served picnic style in a large tent, and was actually quite good. They even had tablecloths! Here are a few pictures of the sheep station - much more interesting!

As we moved higher toward the summit, our driver/guide, Nate, turned off the road and took us to see the VLBA or Very Long Baseline Array radio telescope. This is part of a multinational radio telescope project that circles the globe from Hawaii to St. Croix and is synchronized to work as a single telescope collecting radio wave signals from space.

Enlarge this photo to read the description
of the VLBA and what it does

The terrain is pretty rocky up there. All basalt from the
lava. And the sun is just around the side of that hill.

We were about to get back on the bus when we turned
around and saw this - who knew the end of the
rainbow is right beside a telescope, and us
close enough to walk up and touch it?

Then, at last, we reached the summit of Manua Kea at 13,796 feet. All we could say was 'Wow!!' Amazing to be that high above the clouds and not in an airplane. The air was so crisp and clear and thin that we had to be a little careful walking around that we didn't have trouble breathing. We had been up at that elevation before, in Peru, but even if you know what to expect, it can take some getting used to.

Rather than waste any more time searching for words, we'll just put in a few photos from up there.

Welcome to Telescope Row - or was that Rowe? Monica
with the Subaru and Keck I and Keck II telescopes
behind her.

The US Keck telescopes. These were used to find the first black holes
and supernovae.

The Kecks and NASA Infrared Telescope

Behind us is the Canada-France-Hawaii Optical Telescope

The UK Infrared Telescope and the University of Hawaii .6 Meter
in the distance

After sunset we headed back down to the area of the Visitors' Centre just above 9,000 feet to do some stargazing. Of course it was impossible to try to get any photographs without a tripod, so we'll just say that we were all awed by the number of stars and the Milky Way. For all the times we had been in the southern hemisphere, where the Milky Way is more visible, we had always been 'clouded out' and hadn't been able to see it. Standing out there and just looking up was an 'OMG!' moment in the truest sense.

Nate set up the portable 11" telescope and started pointing out things - the Milky Way, some of the astrological constellations like Libra, Scorpio, and Sagittarius, and individual super giant stars like Antares, that you can see glowing reddish with the naked eye. Then we moved on to some star clusters, the Andromeda Galaxy, that looked like a fuzzy oblong spot, and the crowning event - Saturn! What made Saturn so awesome was that it is currently tilted so that from Earth we are actually viewing the planet from the top, so we could clearly see the whole ring structure around it. Even Norm, with his terrible eyesight, could make it out through the telescope.

After an hour or so, we made a last quick stop at the Visitors' Centre, where Monica bought a hoodie that says 'Mauna Kea Observatories  Clearly the Best' as her souvenir, and then started the long drive home. Most of the way down if we looked out the window we could still clearly see the Milky Way, as if it was giving us as much of a view as possible to make up for the times we couldn't see it.

Yes, it was a long afternoon and a long bus ride, but was it worth it? Absolutely! Would some of us do it again? Most definitely.

When we talked to other people in our group the next day, they said they had had some more very heavy rain in Kailua-Kona in the mid- afternoon, enough to flood streets and stall cars. Barb and Monica had been getting heavy rain/flash flood warnings on their phones off and on for a day or so - something that the cell providers set up automatically with the Hawaii weather service - and it seems that we missed one while we were up on Mauna Kea.

But now we had to get back to more mundane things. We needed to be packed up for a 6:15 bags-out call in the morning for our flight to Maui.