Hawaii Trip (Maui) #3-3: Nakalele Blowhole, Kahekili Highway, Jumping Off Waterfalls, and Volcano Snorkeling

Our third day in Maui began with no firm plans, deciding to sort-of wing it and do some exploring. Often times these days turn out to be my favorite, a’la Halona Beach Cove on last year’s trip to Oahu. This one lived up to my hopes – unexpected twists and turns made the day feel like an adventure! This post covers a very busy Monday and Tuesday, so warm up your scrolling finger before moving on.

Slappy Cakes

The prior day we passed a restaurant close to the hotel with its name in messy-enough cursive that I couldn’t quite clearly read it from the car. Sloppy… cakes? I saw the word cake, and it was Meg’s birthday, so I called it out. She pulled up the website, and we learned it was a breakfast place. Ah – Slappy Cakes… Not only was this a breakfast place, but it was a cook-your-own pancakes at the table place. Cool! Sounded worth a great way to fuel up before our mystery day ahead.

in the Slappy (not sloppy!) Cakes lobby

They just bring out bottles of pancake batter and whatever toppings you want to make your own pancakes at the table. YUM.

First round of pancakes as we figure out how to use the griddle.

As we sat and ordered, Vivienne was having a bad attitude.. so I told her the place was called Slappy Cakes because if you don’t make and eat your pancakes, we had to start slapping her repeatedly until she did.

Beyond pancakes, Meghann also ordered eggs, bacon and sausages. The pancakes were really the star of the show though – they were all delicious. It was funny watching everyone’s pancake making sort of match their personality. Meghann made pancakes with no toppings, but intently focused on trying to cook them perfectly. Sage and Vivienne made various shapes with dashes of rainbow from sprinkles. Meanwhile I tried to cram as many of my favorite toppings (chocolate chip, shredded coconut, granola) as humanly possible into a pancake without them falling apart. They were absolutely delicious – YUM. I’d definitely recommend this place.

Nakalele Blowhole

My last day working before the trip, a coworker suggested a blowhole on the northwest part of the island as a cool spot to check out. After we were full from Slappy’s, we did the ~25 minute drive north to the Nakalele Blowhole. We didn’t really know what to expect as we hadn’t done much research going in, other than I knew there was a short and lightly challenging hike before arriving at the blowhole.

When pulling up, they had signs with QR codes to pay for parking. Cool no problem! Except… no cell signal? I even tried texting to pay using the iPhone satellite text feature, and it just texted me back a link that I couldn’t access. Free parking it is!

There were a few trailheads, so we went down one that had a few people already heading down it. As we moved down, the trail got steeper and even had a few parts with light climbing. Also, did I mention Maui is windy? It’s windy, and this area was WINDY windy. My hat even blew off at one point, sending me chasing after it.

The trail started off easy enough

Very honest sign. I told the girls the fastest way back to the parking lot was to jump into the blowhole and let it blow you back to it, but they weren’t having any of it.

As we continued the hike down, the scenery became truly amazing. The blowhole shot water and mist high into the air, while large waves roared in the background, sometimes coming up onto the cliff.

The blowhole, doing what a blowhole does

Quick photo op before my hat blew off

So many great photo ops

Every photo was like… OK now hold your smile until you hear the crash!

We didn’t know if this would take fifteen minutes or an hour, and we ended up spending a full hour and a half (including a roughly half mile hike each way) when all was said and done. While there were several other people there, I wouldn’t call it packed. Beyond the blowhole itself, there were some cool cliffs to explore and tons of different great photo opportunities- I ended up with almost two hundred photos from this stop alone.

Kahekili Highway

After we wrapped up at Nakalele, we decided to head to the Twin Falls, which is near the beginning of the Road to Hana. One thing I’d noticed on the trip – despite staying on the northwest part of the island, and often times traveling to the north central part of the island, we were always being routed around the south side of the mountain, never around the north side which appeared to be shorter. Well, given this was an adventure day, it was time to drive it!

The further we drove down this “highway” the sketchier it got… which was exactly what I was hoping for! Narrow single-lane roads, hundreds of feet up a mountain with no guardrails? Check. Creepy murder shacks and broken down cars? Check. Remote towns made of mostly shacks? Check. Not a ton of cars, but sweeping, beautiful views and lots of interesting things to see along the way. We ended up in a cloud halfway through which began pouring rain for the rest of the trip. There were so many cool stops we ended up passing, I’d love to come back here and spend some more time here some day! We clocked the elevation as high as a thousand feet at one point.

Crazy triangle mountain

Farm on an incredibly steep mountainside. How do they even harvest that?

Rain was coming down sideways at one point

Twin Falls

After spending almost an hour and a half on the aforementioned highway, we came down into Kahului to gas up and get back on our way. We didn’t know much about Twin Falls, other than a few reviews mentioned it was not that great but worth a quick look.

Yep, twin falls. What lies ahead?

After parking, there were quite a few directions to head, so we chose the left one and just went with it. A very quick walk took us to the first waterfall. There were quite a few people swimming in the pool at the bottom, and a few climbing on the trees and rocks. The girls were eager to get in, so we let them go while Meg and I hung back on the shore. I found a cool fallen tree to climb into with my camera.

First of the twin falls… can you spot the girls? Hint – Sage has on a pink rash guard. You can see where this is going…

Sitting in this perch was super satisfying and relaxing. If it had a Yelp page I’d give it five stars.

Vivienne fearlessly leaps without hesitation.. who is this girl?

Sage works up the nerve and goes next!

When we had first arrived, someone had jumped from the top of the waterfall (20-25 feet up maybe?) and the girls seemed to want to try it. They scaled it up together, with Vivienne in the lead. Usually Sage is the first to try these types of things, but Vivienne walked right up to the top, found a spot she was happy jumping from, and just launched off. Wow!! Fearless. Sage came shortly behind, but had some reservations after making it to the jump platform. After a bit, several onlookers started yelling words of encouragement, and off she went! She earned some applause after the jump.

After the girls both jumped, several others decided to try it as well. What a proud dad moment! I loved seeing them embrace their curiosity and sense of adventure… That was higher than any free jump I’ve ever made… I’d be lying if my competitive side doesn’t have me itching to jump from an even higher one now!

A group followed up the girls their second jump… if those little girls can do it, they surely can?

We found a second, slightly smaller waterfall. What do you do after jumping off a big waterfall? Obviously, jump off another big waterfall AT THE SAME TIME..

Apparently there is a third waterfall if you’re willing to walk another 20-30 minutes out! It was already like 4:30 and we were running out of steam, so we decided to save that for another time and head back to the car.

Random shot of ants on a Bird of Paradise. I always find macro shots so interesting.

Ho’okipa Beach Park⁩

The girls really wanted to go to a beach, so we decided to make one last stop on the way home. Meghann searched beaches, and this one had some sea turtles so we decided to give it a go. It was already getting close to dinner time (and we were an hour out to the hotel!) so we decided to make this a quicker stop. It was also downpouring when we arrived.

This beach delivered on the promise of turtles, but also had quite a few surfers, windsurfers, and even a few small spots to play in the water protected from the crashing waves. After success with my twin falls perch, I found another! This time was behind a concrete barrier overlooking the ocean.

Turtles? Check

Surfers? Check

Little protected area (bottom left) for the girls to play in the sand? Also check.

Rest of the evening

Upon finally arriving back at the hotel, we were tired and dirty from the day of adventure. Being too tired to go anywhere, we made the frozen pizza we’d picked up a couple days ago for dinner. We decided to turn in early, given the early start to the day ahead.

But wait, there’s more! I spotted a tiny lizard in the hotel lobby. Vivi chased it down and we brought it outside to release in a garden.

Day Four: Molokini and Turtle Town

Tuesday’s activity was a boat excursion out to a half-sunken volcano crater known as “Molokini” and the promise of snorkeling with sea turtles. We had to be at the launch point no later than 6am, which was 30 minutes from the hotel. We woke up at 5am, and got the day going! Notable, the valet guy seemed to have lost our car which was interesting.

The launch point was located in a harbor we’d passed at least half a dozen times to this point, so finding it was fairly easy and parking was great. We heard a quick set of instructions, signed the waiver (that I apparently already signed, so double covered), and boarded the boat.

Molokini Tour

We boarded a full boat that maybe held 50 passengers. Upon boarding they handed out masks and snorkels, and breakfast was served while we found seating. Given the limited seating, I ended up sitting a ways away from Meghann and the girls. We had about an hour ride out to Molokini on the boat, and things were quickly underway.

Molokini crater as we approached. Apparently it’s a protected wildlife preserve for marine and avian wildlife.

Descending into the water.

Little did I know, the trip was actually two stops. The first in Molokini crater, and the second at a place that had the turtles. Molokini had some beautiful scenery, super clear water and quite a bit to see below the surface. Fish, sea urchins, and even an eel made an appearance.

Figuring out diving with the gear

While cool, the first stop was fairly uneventful. We had 45 minutes to swim and explore before heading back to the boat. After re-boarding and getting on our way, the choppy water caused a full coffee dispenser to slide off a table and hit a lady in the head! Fortunately, she was OK. Sage rushed over to help pick up some of the other items spilled on the floor, what a helpful kid!

The second stop didn’t have amazing geological features like the first, but it did have a lot more wildlife! We saw several turtles as well as other fish. Sage and I took turns diving – the DJI camera would show our dive depth each time. I hit close to 16 feet at one point! But, can always go deeper. 🙂

The boat photographer getting a shot of the girls with the turtle.

Sage is an impressive diver for only being ten! Her biological grandmother in South Korea was a “woman diver” who could hold her breath for minutes at a time while diving for shellfish – maybe she had it in her genes?

Got all four of us in the photo, thanks to a selfie stick in my bag.

On arriving back to shore, we walked around a few shops and even stopped for ice cream. Sage’s melted all over her. Meghann was starving and picked up some pizza. After a brief stop, we got on the road to our hotel.

Embracing the melty chaos

Afternoon

After the early morning and swimming, we were pretty tired after getting back to the hotel around 1pm. Vivienne REALLY wanted to go to the pool, so I told her she could go down the (pretty short) water slide ten times when we got back.

Water slide!

Water slide! (but Vivi)

After the waterslide, we headed back to the room for a nap before an early 4:30 reservation at Monkey Pod, 30 minutes from the hotel.

Dinner at Monkey Pod

Sooo we woke up at 3:45pm and figured out dinner wasn’t 30 minutes away.. but rather, a little over an hour away! We rushed out the door and gave the restaurant a call – fortunately they were able to move our reservations back. The drive to dinner had the heaviest traffic I’d seen on the island the entire trip – seemed some of the construction and clearing of Lahaina was backing things up.

Dinner at Monkey Pod was my favorite of the trip so far! We had the lobster deviled eggs and truffle fries as an appetizer, both delicious. For an entrée I ordered the fish and lobster pasta which was delicious. They were also apparently known for their Maitai’s, which I decided to give a go. They were pretty strong, but I’d definitely put it in the top five all time cocktails I’ve ever had. Our waitress was also excellent and we even ordered some dessert before heading out. This place was a hit! I’ll be back.

We stopped at the Shops at Wailea on the way home to walk around a bit and check out what they had. Quite a few high-end stores and even a live hula performance underway. Vivienne and I each picked up a pair of Olu Kai sandals, and we headed back to the car.

Wrapping Up

We made it back to the hotel, all pretty wiped out from the long day. I’ve been going through the day’s photos and writing up this blog post, and a few hours later here we are! Please forgive the lack of editing on this one as it’s long and getting late. 🙂

Tomorrow is our last full day on Maui, and we have the Road to Hana planned. We’ve already hit several stops as part of the trip, and were questioning if doing the full day trip tomorrow is worth it. Soooo.. do we go? Do we call an audible? We’ll see what the morning brings… more to come!