Hawaii - Maui Island

Aaaah... Maui... well what shall we say, Maui really is like you imagine it to be, green rainforests, great beaches, turquoise sea, AND very, very expensive. Maui is a bit of a combination of all the other islands, the tourists and the expensive hotels and holiday apartments from Oahu, the rainforests and pretty coastline from Kauai, and the vulcanic landscapes from Big Island.

    Maui's Northwest Coast

Together with Lanai, Molokai and Kaho'Olawe, Maui was once a much bigger island, before the sea level rose and left over 4 separate islands. Check it out on Google Earth :)

We stayed 7 days on Maui in a beautiful little condo in Napili Bay - if you're thinking about going to Maui we can highly recommend this place, it was just wonderful. The condo was one of the cheapest we could find on Maui but was still fantastic and felt like pure luxury for us. Fully equipped kitchen, balcony with ocean views (with dolphins cruising by), the beach only 50m away (awesome snorkelling with huge turtles) and the most comfortable bed we ever slept in.

  A little bay not far from where we stayed

Like on the other islands we spent two days scuba diving; unfortunatley the dive company wasn't as great as the ones we went with before but the diving itself was still worldclass, especially the sunken Molokini crater (a remainder of when the sea level was much lower) and the coast of Lanai. We're pretty much experts now on Hawaiian Marine Life :) 

We also drove up Haleakala Vulcano to experience another beautiful sunset on top of the world (that's how it felt). Haleakala is about 3000m tall and you can see Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea on Big Island in the distance, pretty amazing views. Haleakala hasn't been active since about 300 years ago though.

   Haleakala Crater

   Views over the Pacific Ocean to Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea on Big Island

   More observatories

   Sunset

   Haleakala and an old lava flow

We also spent time exploring the island, driving the world famous 'Road to Hana' (the Great Ocean Road of Hawaii, which we actually found a bit mediocre in comparison to some other drives on the Hawaiian islands), visiting Iao Valley and lots and lots of waterfalls, one more beautiful than the next. The tallest and most impressive ones were definitely the Waimoku Falls at the end of the Hana Highway. The hike to the falls was really beautiful, through huge bamboo forests and, in our case, also through the pouring rain.

   Twin Falls... lots of people bathing here

   Hiking through the rainforest to the...

   Waimoku Falls

To summarise our stay on the Hawaiian islands, well, it was truly beautiful and a lot better than we imagined it to be. We just loved the fact that there is something to do for everybody, whether it's just lazing around on the beach slurping a Mai Tai, hiking, surfing, shopping, dining, snorkelling, etc. There really is so much to do and see, and everything's just so pretty and scenic. 

   Maui - also called the Valley Isle

But now off to the US mainland where we'll embark on a 6 weeks roadtrip from San Francisco, via LA, Las Vegas, the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone Park, Seattle and everything in between. Alex, Stefan's brother, will be joining us for the first three weeks which we really look forward to, yayyy! :)

Hawaii - Big Island

Our next stop was Hawaii, also called the Big Island as it's twice as big as all other islands combined and, thanks to its active volcano, it's still growing as lava is still flowing into the ocean every now and then. The Hawaiian archipelago rose out of the ocean due to a hot spot in the Earth's crust. Through tectonic movement the islands get moved away from the hot spot, making the most westerly island (Kauai) the oldest one, with the oldest volcanoes and Big Island the youngest one. Just Southeast of Big Island there's another island in the making, Lo'ihi; it's still about 900m underwater but in a few thousand years it will form a new island. Pretty interesting.

The first half of our stay (4 days) we spent in Hilo on the East Coast of Hawaii; from there we ventured out to explore the volcanoes. We first did a 7km hike across the Kilauea Iki (=little Kilauea) crater which erupted in 1959 and is still steaming today. Pretty amazing to imagine you're walking over a lava lake. Towards the end of the walk there's also a pretty cool lava tube through which you can walk - the only thing more amazing was when we got to dive through such tubes a few days later ;)

Stefan in the Kilauea Iki Crater

We then drove up to the main Kilauea caldera, where the Halema'uma'u crater is still active. All you can see during the day is fumes steaming up from the crater, as the lava lake is too deep down to see from the lookout and needless to say due to the unpredictability of an active volcano you cannot really get any closer. After doing another smaller hike over 1970s lava flows up to a cinder cone with great views of the Pu'u 'O'o vent through which lava is currently flowing down towards the sea we drove the Chain of Craters Road down towards the ocean. The road eventually ends where lava flew over it in 2003.

Still active Halema'uma'u Crater

Driving through lava flows...

... to where the road ends.

The next day was all about astronomy; we spent half a day in the Space Centre in Hilo and then drove up Mauna Kea to watch the sunset and then join a free stargazing tour. Mauna Kea is the world's highest volcano with 4200m and if you measure the mountain from it's oceanic base (so it's real height) it's over 10,000m so actually even higher than Mt Everest. With a non 4WD you cannot go all the way up to the top and the walk takes about 8hours or so, so we decided to stay at the visitor centre at about 3000m and wait for the stars to come out which was just beautiful. We got to see the Southern Cross and Ursa Major (=Grosse Wagen) at once, so this was pretty special for us :)

Stargazing, one of Marlene's biggest passions.

Well, the sight is amazing, isn't it.

Sunset on top of Mauna Kea - the mountain casts its shadow onto the atmosphere

After exploring the rest of the East Coast and its lush rainforests and waterfalls we moved on to the Westcoast where we stayed another 4 nights in a studio apartment in the heart of Kona. Kona is a really nice little town, lots of shops, bars and restaurants but not as expensive or over-crowded as Honolulu. This is like you imagine Hawaii, nice, relaxed and beautiful. There's lots of beautiful beaches to snorkel and where you can snorkel you can of course also scuba dive :) Kona is known for its Manta Ray Night dives, which started about 40 years ago when the Sheraton Hotel put lights on the ocean floor (just to make it look nice); with the lights plankton was building up and with the plankton came the mantas who feed on the plankton. And obviously with the mantas came all the tour companies. But although you share that special spot with about 100 other divers and about 300 snorklers above you it's absolutely magical!!

We did another 5 dives off the Kona coast which were just as great; warm water, endless visibility and beautiful underwater landscapes made it very memorable.

To recap, the Big Island really has something for everybody, volcanoes, beaches, the rainforest, hiking trails, nightlife, etc AND it's much cheaper. If anybody's thinking about going to Hawaii, this is where you want to be, skip the main island and crowded Waikiki, in comparison to the Big Island it's absolutely boring and a bit too American ;)