Monday, May 25, 2015

Maui R&R

[....a bit of Hawaii information ....]

With a long weekend available, we opted for some more R&R. This time, a hop over to Maui. We've been to Maui several times for 1 or 2 day trips in the past and thought we had "done the island". Wrong. We managed to find several more things of interest, plus extras worth going back for.

As with all our Maui trips, we took in the Warren and Annabelle Show. I don't even need to say any ore that it's worth seeing since we've seen it 5 (or is it 6) times now. And we stayed at the Plantation Inn, as always. Why change when we've found winners. 

My main target this trip was a sugarcane workshop. I was totally enthused at the idea of attending. (Actually this trip's main purpose was this workshop and visiting cane and taro fields to gather more information.) Hubby couldn't have deemed the event any more boring than he did, so he was happier to go looking for a Starbucks and drink coffee for hours. 

Workshop over, now comes the Hawaiian vacation part......including the field trips for cane and taro mixed in. 

Bailey House Museum......
A historical small museum featuring the home and buildings of the Bailey family, furnishings, and collections. I found the original artwork depicting the countryside of the time (late 1800s and early 1900s) to be interesting. So that's what the bay looked like back then, the buildings, the Hawaiian homes and farms, the gardens and pastures. Visual history. Pretty cool. 
Several Hawaiian implements of the time period were also on display. Poi pounders (above), calabashes, fishing equipment, farm tools, kapa cloth, etc. There are several taro patches on the museum grounds with several Hawaiian varieties. 
The personal collection of tree snail shells collected by the Baileys was there. The above is only part of the collection. Alas, most tree snails are now extinct because of habitat destruction and over zealous collectors. Sigh......no different than today. As Spock said, "To hunt a species to extinction is illogical." We never learn. 

Walking vacations we find to be very relaxing......taxing sometimes, but still good. So after the field trips were accomplished we went looking for walking paths. We read about some petroglyphs that were suppose to be on a basalt cliff base, but the directions were vague. We searched here and there, walked about a mile up paths and a road until we found a little park....AND a paved road! Ah, the road not taken!! 
Of course the car is over a half mile away, so we just continued on foot. Came to this....
Oh show me a sign! Yes! We finally ended up in the right area and with a tad more walking found the petroglyphs. 
As with just about every petroglyph field that has open public access without a ranger to protect it, there was a lot of graffiti and defacing evident. Egads, people are such pigs and totally ignorant. To destroy history like this is inexcusable. But at least some of the petroglyphs were still undamaged. Even though the site has suffered, it is still very worth while seeing if you decide to make the trip. 

Another walk I'd highly recommend is the one mile walk, all uphill, to a bamboo forest. 
Walking in amid the bamboo was incredible. When I entered I immediately noticed the lack of breeze, increased humidity, stillness, no birds, new strange smell. Very spiritual. No, the smell wasn't my sweat, though at this point it would have been a good guess. I guess it was the bamboo and the vegetative decomposition going on. A pleasant enough smell. Just different. 

The walk through the bamboo forest is just about one mile, which brings one to a pretty neat waterfall. 
Water is coming out of the lava walls in multiple spots, creating lots of misty mini-falls in addition to this one large one pictured above. Viewing the falls and exploring around the area made us forget our tiredness for the time being. I wouldn't say that the walk was all that challenging, but it was entirely uphill for two miles. Moderate I guess I'd term it. So if you're up for this sort of walk, it is well worth it. Next time we do it, we plan to bring along a picnic lunch. The falls area, or even the bamboo forest, would be a great place to sit for an hour. 

I managed to acquire scads of info on sugarcane and taro plus tons of photographs of the various varieties. Well worth the trip. And topped the two day info gathering with a day of walking and exploring. All in all, an excellent trip. 

2 comments:

  1. Glad you got to some of things I found, too, on Maui. The petroglyphs are a mess, solely by kanakas. I use that word advisedly. No shame! But - yes the waterfalls you found are nice, and a little snack there would be perfect. The Haleakala area is good for going holoholo, too, but less friendly than in years past. I suspect it arose as the frequency of "taking" (island term for stealing) became endemic. Too bad, as I had some great places for fresh eggs, veggies, and fruit. They are still there, but that was then. I had a chance to go back recently, but went to Kauai instead. Man, has that place grown! I found less of the resentment toward visitors there compared to Maui, but that could have been just chance, too. More people drove my style, slow and easy, pull over if guy behind follows close, no worry.
    Glad you got to get information on cane - there must be more than 150 varieties! I still like to chew a stick, but hard to find here on the mainland. And guavas!

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  2. Lovely blog. Been to Maui once. A hang gliding trip for my ex-husband. We did very little else. But I was glad to be there anyway even though I got a really bad head cold. I remember the road to Hana and the little grocery store way out near the end or middle I forget which and the local guy telling us that all the little rock piles on the other side where we drove where we weren't supposed to drive were little monuments to all the native Hawaiians killed by bad guys.

    "To hunt a species to extinction is illogical." So true. I could see how that might happen in the good old hunter gatherer days but now with domesticated food it's unnecessary to say the least.

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