Lahaina, HI

Wed Dec 30th

Today was West Maui bike loop day for Mark in the morning and Whale Watching for the four of us in the afternoon.

Mark got away just before 7 am and Ali and I went on to our respective forms of exercise: Ali to the gym and me for a walk.

Mark’s bike ride around the north-west part of the island was expected to take 4 hours or so and so Ali and I killed some of that time with a short visit to the Maui Outlets. It’s hard to believe, after all the shopping we’ve done, that there could be still more items on the list but…. there was. Ali is still after another pair of running shoes. We didn’t manage to find them at this Outlet as it’s a bit smaller than the Oahu Outlet and, thus, has fewer sport shops.

We caught the $2 courtesy bus down and back and made it home at around noon and found that Mark had returned safely. He was rather exhausted and pleased to have survived the 90 km ride but, sure enough, his first words were… ‘it’s not as good a loop as Glenorchy’! You have to give him points for consistency.

Our Whale Watching tour departed from Lahaina Harbour at 2.30 pm and so we set off for this with enough time for Mark to return his rental bike along the way. The Whale Watching Tour was good value and we spent much of the 2 hour journey stalking three whales that were affectionately referred to as Joe, Jack and Scraggy. There was an opportunity to buy a professional photo that was taken as we boarded the boat but, no surprise to us, Ali had her eyes shut. We don’t know how she does it!

The trip home included another stop off to Safeways to buy dinner. The boys were doing the Haleakala downhill bike ride in the morning and were being picked up at 6.30 am and so another home dinner was favoured.

We were glad to be home in the comfort of the condo and noted some more whales frolicking in the water right out in front of us. Just whether this was Joe, Jack or Scraggy was not clear though.