15.02 Hawaii: Haleakala, Tropical Plantation and Iao Park

Hawaii - Aloha state :) That is what is written on car license plates here. So Aloha then! And another word you hear a lot here is 'mahalo' :)

First event of the day was watching sunrise at Haleakala summit and then ride down from halfway of the mountain on bikes - I was booked on Haleakala sunrise and biking tour (others decided to sleep in). So my day started at 2:30 this morning :D Tour bus picked me up at 2:45 from the lobby. By 3:15 we had all the needed people picked up from the hotels and we headed over to the breakfast area somewhere by Haiku. From there we still had about 70 minutes to go until we reached the summit of Haleakala volcano crater (which actually does not qualify as a crater at all as we were informed). We were at 3055m above the sea level.

Sun was going to rise at 6:49, we got to the summit an hour in advance. It was absolutely freezing there, also the wind was so strong that it was difficult to stand up straight. Temperature was -8C accounting wind speed as well - juuust freezing! Luckily there was a viewing platform in a building as well which was heated. Wait was long and it was basically impossible to take photos as the wind was so strong. Of course the colors that formed in the sky were absolutely beautiful and sun rise was magnificent. It was described as watching the sun rise from up above and that it really was. There was the crater in front of us as a dark dark hole, around the crater was soft cloud carpet and on the horizon there were intense red and yellow colors. At 6:49 a bright dot appeared on the horizon, it grew with every second and soon the whole golden ring of fire was visible :) Yeap it was great.

Next we drove half way down the mountainside and put on our biking gear. Now, just look at the pictures and try not to laugh. We got very robust and extremely heavy bikes that were fixed at the first gear. The brakes were weak on purpose so that you had to press both levels fully down to come to a complete stop. We were given wind proof jackets, motorcycle helmets and gloves. Good thing about the ride was that throughout the 45km ride we needed to pedal only for about 100m total :D The rest of the way we just tried to slow down and keep the distance between the person in front. We were given very strict rules of not looking behind us, not passing, not getting too close, not breaking with first break only and so on and so on. But the ride itself was fabulous! Bikes were a bit difficult to control, but after a bit I got used to the behaviour and rolled down the windy road merrily :) We stopped on the way quite many times to take pictures, let the cars pass or have a lunch break. Wonderful part of the track was passing through eucalyptus tree forest - bit of aroma therapy :) The whole ride on the bikes down the steep and narrow road was a real adrenaline kick!

I was back at the hotel by 11:30. As Wytni and Diane had gone for a walk on the beach I decided to lay out in the sun for a bit. This was the first time during the trip that I was tanning outside - oh that felt good, to roast myself in the sun.

For afternoon activity we were heading over to Maui Tropical Plantation. First we had lunch at Ma'alaea Grill and enjoyed wonderful views to the marina. At the plantation they offered a tram ride that would cover the whole area as a guided tour. We learned how the sugar is made of sugar cane, that pineapples take 2 years to grow, how to crack open a coconut, what are the 3 different stages of coconut and how to recognize if coconut is eatable or not, that macadamia nuts are self harvesting, how banana trees work and how bananas grow, how does coffee harvesting work and so on and so on. It was very interesting and now I can't wait to get my hands on coconut to test out the tricks shown on opening the thing :)

Before heading back to the hotel we drove up to Iao National Park. This is a very scenic location that apparently is the most photographed location in the whole Hawaiian islands. Opening scene of Jurassic Park was apparently filmed here as well, the rest was filmed on another island (can't remember which one). Anyhoo, the views were gorgeous as promised.