We started the day with a walk around the B&B where we are staying. It’s a beautiful property, with two small ravines and a ridge in between, all with mature trees, steps, and a little bridge. Nothing fancy, but fun to explore.
Somehow, Leilani found the only black raspberry bush that we saw:
As with any 2 acre property, it’s hard to keep up and it had seen better days. But the greenhouse could easily be used again, if you had the time and energy:
The area used to be a protea farm, and the owner said she planted these mature bushes years ago. Now they are mostly wild, but still blooming:
For the second morning in a row, the view was clear until the cane field burning started up. Then we could see the plume of smoke rise up and spread over the valley:
By the way, the property is for sale, and $1 million seems to be the going rate.
Before a hard day of hiking up on the volcano, we stopped at Grandma’s Coffee House for breakfast. We found this place last time and had to come back. They have all sorts of delicious baked goods and breakfast foods–and decent coffee. My (Andy’s) favorite is the coconut pineapple tart (not sure exactly what to call it, not a pie, but baked in a shell). We also bought a banana-nut bread for tomorrow morning–but we weren’t as lucky as last year when we got one fresh out of the oven:
Of course, the resident cats knew who to beg from, and Leilani had to feed them:
Finally we head up toward Haleakala, the House of the Sun. When you think about it, it’s incredible that you can drive from the seashore to 10,000 feet (3050m) on top of a volcano in 38 miles (61km).
On the way up, we stopped to look for ‘ohelo berries, a native edible berry. But it must not be right season because we only found 2 of them (berries not bushes), and neither were ripe. We did find the inedible but still pretty and native pukiawe covered in berries:
Here we are in the parking lot at the top of the road:
And after a short climb of 23 feet (7m), we are at the top of the volcano. Come to think of it, we climbed more than 23 feet, so that means that the road is a few feet short of 10,000:
It was a mostly clear day and there are beautiful views in all directions. Into the “crater”:
Toward the island of Lanai (with its own cloud on top). Notice the grey bands, those are from the cane fire smoke that blew out to sea.
We walked around to several lookouts to get several views into the crater, and of ourselves:
Later in the day, the clouds started blowing in through gaps in the crater walls:
This is the famous silversword, a native plant endemic to Maui at this altitude. It is descended from a daisy-like plant whose seeds were brought to Maui hundreds of thousands of years ago by a bird.
We didn’t know this next plant, so we bought a guide book at the gift shop to identify it. It is a native plant called Kupaoa (or Na’e Na’e). It has two varieties, one with 4 symmetrical rows of leaves, and one with 6 symmetrical rows. Incredibly, it is probably descendent from the same daisy-like plant brought by a bird–just a different adaptation.
And finally, a bush covered in orange berries, but not ‘ohelo berries and probably not edible. We’re still not sure the name of this one:
Before driving down, we stopped for a picnic in a flowery spot:
We then actually drove straight down to the closest beach. Unfortunately, it being a holiday (Good Friday), there were crowds of people and no parking–we were actually stuck in the parking lot for 10 minutes looking for a spot (Maui does have its downsides). So we went to our friends’ house and spent a fun evening with them.