Home!

We made it to the airport on time! (Only because we spent all night there!)

It was amazing how few people were on the plane.

We also had good connecting flights and got back to Rocky on the same day, but had to self isolate for 2 weeks. We were hoping that customs didn't confiscate the toilet paper we were bringing in. 😂

We were lucky to get exit row for once. Leaving Honolulu was pretty rough flying for the first hour and seatbelt signs were on, so it was quite funny watching people who wanted to score empty double seats trying it on.

Honestly, despite how lovely it was, (especially catching up with the family), due to the Pandemic we were never so pleased as to see the shoreline of Australia.

Kaui

We woke up early to a thunderstorm and a weather forecast of heavy rain and flooding for at least 3 days, so we decided to pull the plug and try to change our flights to get home early. It was pretty stressful as I was trying to get new flights and do reports for work, which didn't work well as I was having password trouble. Eventually I was able to get the international flights changed using Facebook messenger, so then changed our Hawaiian airlines flight back to Oahu. This little exercise cost $600 for the QANTAS flights and $60 for the Hawaiian. We packed and left about 5pm to get to the airport for the 7:30pm flight. (It turned out that we also lost the 4 days of accommodation).

The ocean was rough and dirty brown

We had to change terminals in Honolulu. After everything we definitely didn't want to risk missing the flights, so we decided to just sit it out in the airport until our flight at 8:30am in the morning. The airport security came over to check us and the few others who were trying to get a little a sleep on pretty uncomfortable seats. They took our names and passport numbers. All night they played quite soothing Hawaiian music (although Darryl wasn't impressed with it). It was worth it to get on the flight as we learned that 90% of QANTAS international flights were being axed until May, and we think we are on one of the last out of Hawaii (in fact the flight crew told us we were on the second last QANTAS flight to Sydney).

Maui

We woke up early and drove to a park with a toilet. Then on further to Kamaole Beach Park III which had tables and nice shade trees, so we had coffee there.

While swimming I had 2 big green turtles swim with me. Darryl went snorkeling and convinced me to go and see the bommies with lots of fish, sponges etc. It was just lovely. We saw more whales. Darryl enjoyed the bodysurfing, and it was quite a popular area with lots of boats, paddle boards, and canoeists. I am pretty sure I also saw dolphins.

The "Touch of Cold Water Community" care van arrived and about 6 homeless people from the park lined up. Afterwards, one of them have Darryl his peanut butter and jelly sandwiches as he had too many!

While having an early lunch we watched the 'show' with a pod of whales breaching and spurting out around a canoeist.

A tiny whale tail on the horizon line

This boat went past oblivious to the whale behind it

I thought the Iao Valley looked like an interesting place to visit so we went there next.

Parking was $5 which wasn't too bad. It was about a 20 min walk up to the lookout and down through the Polenesian gardens with bananas, taro, sugar cane, etc. I took photos for a couple of families.

We then tried to go to Haleki'i & Pihana Heiau but it was closed off so we went and parked outside Starbucks to use the free WiFi and pack up.

The van was left at the airport parking, and it wasn't until we were on the plane that we realised that we had both left our walking sticks in it! Also 3 mins before boarding we got the message from Shane that the COVID-19 situation had deteriorated, and Canada was contemplating closing their borders. It really worried us, but our luggage was already on board, so we had no choice but to board the plane and we flew to Kaui, picked up the car and drove the 45 mins to Princeville and our accommodation in the pouring rain. I spent a couple of hours trying to work out our options, while Darryl slept.