Hawaii - August 2008

Craig-
I have good friends who married here on the mainland and took a two-week honeymoon to Hawai'i. I forget where-all in the islands they went, but they travelled extensively everywhere other than the Big Island. They rated the sunrise at Haleakala and the bike trip down as the pinnacle of their trip (no pun intended).

But, it's quite the investment in time to make it happen, to wit: The drive is some 30-35 miles from the outfitters and it takes over an hour to do the drive-up. Sunrise at sea level there near the equator is always within a few minutes of 6am (and, you'll find, sunset is always around 6pm). Haleakala's peak is at 10,000', so the sun gets to the horizon shortly after 5am. To catch the colors and glow before sunrise, arrival shortly after 4am is indicated. See where I'm going with this? My friends left their hotel at 12:30am, were outfitted with rental coats, filled out forms (disclaimers, mostly, at least one tourist dies each year on the descent), got the safety lecture,and piled into vans and departed around 2:30am. A short hot breakfast at the summit as the daylight started to arrive, around an hour, hour and a half enjoying the rising sun and temps warming up a bit, then the bike ride started. The bikes are big, fat tire rigs with HUGE disc brakes. Even with only a handful of rest-stops, it's around a 4 hour descent. They got back to their hotel around 1pm and collapsed the rest of the afternoon.

If I get to Maui, you can bet where I'm going first, sir.

Foy

Okay, I've just booked my flights between the islands. This is what I'm looking at:

Tuesday 19th August Flight: Los Angeles - Kona arriving 8pm
Friday 22nd August Flight: Kona - Kahului departing 11.07am arriving 11:36am
Sunday 24th August Flight: Kahului - Honolulu departing 7pm arriving 7.29pm
Wednesday 27th August Flight: Honolulu - Sydney - Perth departing 10.50am

Based on the advice earlier I am flying with Hawaiian Airlines. I tried to book direct but, for some reason, they only accept bookings using an American, Australian, Canadian or Japanese credit card! So I've had to go through American Airlines and pay a little more. But at around 180 bucks I'm not too stressed - it's a pretty fair price all in all.

I am quite excited about doing the sunrise cycle ride and I've been looking at that this morning. It seems that there are six or eight companies offering different tours at varying prices. Only two offer an 'in your own time' descent rather than being escorted down at the speed set by the tour guide.

If I can, rather than staying in hotels, I'll be trying to camp at the national parks. Has anyone else done this?

Have now booked a slot on the sunrise tour operated by Maui Sunriders as a) its the cheapest, b) its the longest route and c) you have the bikes for the full day and can do/go wherever/whatever you like so long as you have them back to the shop by early evening.

Thanks for the suggestion there!