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! :)