Road to Hana - Maui

We were only in port one day for Maui, so we made sure to book an excursion beforehand. A group of fellow 'Odysseans' signed up for the Road to Hana tour thru Hawaii by Storm. Since all 6 of us were from the ship, they made sure to change their pick up and drop off times to accomodate our schedule.

Road to Hana is a famous stretch of road along the coast of Maui. We passed several waterfalls, hillsides full of bamboo, and the exquisite Rainbow Eucalyptus tree. We made several stops during the 8 hour tour, including a roadside Fish Stand for lunch, and Auntie Sandy's banana bread stand. This is so famous that people from the ship had pre-ordered 72 loaves of the bread and we were picking them up. Of course, we bought - and ate - one loaf ourselves. 

Aunty Sandy's Banana Bread

Auntie Sandy's is so famous because it was featured in an episode of Gordon Ramsey's TV show, Uncharted. Here is the episode with Auntie Sandy's - take notice of the flooded/swollen waterfalls in his video. When we saw it, it was just a trickle in comparison. According to Jamie, our driver/guide, it was just luck that Ramsey went to aunty Sandy's rather than another banana bread stands that sells the exact same bread. It was a day when most businesses were closed because of the superbowl, but aunty Sandy's was open. The other stands, like 'Halfway to Hana' are even run by family members, using the same recipe from their mutual grandmother.

Traffic jam and long lines at Aunty Sandys! Luckily people on the ship pre-ordered their loaves and we just had to pick them up.

Red and Black sand beaches with lava tubes

The red sand beach is right near the Huli Huli Chicken stand at Koki Beach Park. So beautiful.

The black sand beach, with it's lava tube is right at Hana. This was the furthest part of our journey on the road to Hana. It's called, cleverly enough, Black Sand Beach. It appears to be part of Wai'anapanapa State Park.

The whole park was very nicely done.

Building with bamboo 

We all know what bamboo looks like when you're looking at the trunk of the plant, but have you ever seen the top? This hillside of bamboo was pointed out to us. I would never have known. Bamboo is prolific in these parts and our tour guide lamented the fact that using it as a building material does not meet code and she wishes that they'd change that law because she thinks it is a great for construction. See this discussion on Reddit.  There is one company who has figure it out - Bamboo Living - and they have kits for building tiny homes - check it out here.

Turtles sleeping on beach

To top off a fabulous day, when we were almost back to the ship we got to see the famous turtles sleeping on the beach at Ho'okipa Beach Park. If you didn't know they were there, you'd miss them even though there was quite a crowd. They look just like rocks.

This is not normal. Green turtles in the rest of the world only go up on the beach to lay their eggs. Not sure how the Hawaiian green turtles got so smart to realize they could sleep while breathing air on the beach. 

Learn more by scanning - or using lens - on the QR code in tthis image:

Last stop - home! 

Thank you to our master story-teller and Road-to-Hana driver, Jaime for a great day and a successful delivery of 36 loaves of Aunty Sandy's Banana Bread.

Saving plants so they can save people - Kauai

Our day at the Allerton and McBryde gardens was not just beautiful, but also educational. The gardens are right next to each other on the southern shore of the island of Kauai. They are part of the national tropical botanical gardens. See the website at ntbg.org.

During the 2.5 hour tour we learned about the gardens mission to save plants so they can save people. 

We saw the Madagascar periwinkle, an unassuming little flower that is responsible for not one, not two, but three anti cancer chemotherapies. 

Then there is a whole section devoted to breadfruit. One tree can feed a family of four all year long. 

Our very knowledgeable guide tells us all about the breadfruit

Then there the other end of the spectrum, the pong pong tree bears a very poisonous fruit. Just a bite can kill you, giving it the name suicide trees. It lives in an area of the gardens known as death row, along with several other deadly plants. 

It's true, the fruit of the Pong Pong tree is deadly.

Our tour guide was 2d generation Hawaiian and very knowledgeable. We learned history as well as science. This property was originally owned by King Kamehameha and there are records of Queen Emma Planting a certain mango tree in the 1800s that is still there and produces fruit. 

The incomparable beauty of the gardens has been used for the backdrop of many movies. Jurassic Park among them. Michael Crichton, author of Jurassic Park, loved the place so much, he got married there.

Our tour guide told us that Michael Chrichton got married right here.

Finding a dinosaur's egg! 😮

Chris is looking for dinosaur's eggs. 

After the garden tour we walked across the street to the "Spouting Horn." This is a natural phenomenon - we would call a blowhole - where an old lava tube funnels water in such a way that the waves burst thru and shoot up, sometimes 20 feet or more. We were told it is tied for second place among the most visited sites in Kauai - tied with ... Costco!

Then we hailed an Uber to take us back to the port and we had lunch at Duke's. A great day of beauty and learning. 

Diamond Head - Oahu

 What a view! After 8 days at sea, we woke up to spectacular views of Oahu and the iconic Diamond Head volcano! 

We’re in port for 2 days. The first day was Sunday and we were scheduled to do our YouTube live-streaming show, “What does this button do?” Episode 301 We did it, and it went well. Here’s what we covered. You can click a topic to go straight to that spot in the show:

Tech tips and travel tales from our Villa Vie Odyssey cruise ship. 00:00 Introduction 03:29 Where are we? 10:53 Make a custom map of your travels 15:50 Manually change time zone 22:38 Conserve battery by turning off cell data 25:59 A word about VPNs 31:58 Kindle books offline and on your phone 36:19 Google Photos 10 year birthday announcements 39:14 Live view for walking directions in Google Maps 42:46 Our Mexico adventure 49:06 Review Questions

So cool that we’re able to do this from our cabin!

While we’re in Hawaiian ports there are alcohol taxes that prevent the ship from serving any. We always have a champagne toast after a show (whether it goes well, or we crash and burn!) so we left the ship and found a likely place - Pitch sports bar - yes, they had champagne, but they also had delicious burgers and fish and chips. A good find!

Diamond Head hike

We were here last January for Jim’s 70th birthday cruise, but did not get to do the hike up Diamond Head. This year we had an ‘in.’ Linda B was on the cruise with us last year and she had since moved to Honolulu. We contacted her and told her when we would in port and she arranged to pick us up and take us on the hike. Fantastic! Thanks Linda.

The website says the hike is .8 miles. I beg to differ! It felt more like 5 miles, straight up! My watch reported that the uphill portion was 1 mile, combine that with getting from the car and back, and the total came out to about 4 miles. The trail was good and had railings most of the way. It was a good workout, and we did it! The views at the top made it all worthwhile. 

Our timing was great. Roughly 3,000 people make this hike daily! The day we went it was threatening to rain and we figured that would keep the crowds a bit thinner - not! Linda made our reservations for 10am we did the hike and were done by noon - that's when the rain started! Perfect. 

To get to the trailhead from the car, we went thru a tunnel. The parking spaces inside the crater are by reservation and fill up quickly.

The beginning of the hike is pretty mild, with pavement covering the rocks and railings on one side.

When the trail got a bit steeper, we took advantage of rest stops.

Looking down on the Diamond Head Lighthouse

Look closely on the hillside to see the people climbin UP those stairs. That's the trail.

Tunnel towards the top

We went left.

Diamond Head was previously a military base (Fort Ruger), here we see one of the bunkers.

And, here's Chris demonstrating how easy it is to get into the bunker. 😜

We made it! What a view.

Ok, we're hungry - and thirsty - now! Linda had the perfect solution! Kona Brewing Co. 

What a great day!