Category: travel

When planning our trip to Hawaii, I read about Molokai’s Halawa Valley several times. It’s located at the eastern tip of Molokai. At some point, I even watched a video about the people who function as caretakers of the area. There are a couple of waterfalls to be seen, but they are on private property, so you either need to secure permission from the landowner to go there alone or join a guided two-mile hike, which would include information about the culture, history, geology, etc.

It probably would’ve been very interesting, but I’m not a huge fan of guided tours. I also knew chances would be very slim that both of us would feel energetic enough to do a hike. That vacation was all about relaxation. I’m sure the waterfalls would have been gorgeous, but what I really wanted to see was the black sand of Halawa Beach, located near the entrance to the Halawa Valley. Hubby was perfectly happy being led around the island, seeing what I deemed interesting and/or doable.

If you want to read more about the area, here’s a link. That website describes the drive from the airport to Halawa as “…an adventure in itself. You’ll pass by Hawaiian Fishponds, points of interest like Kumimi Beach (also known as “20 Mile Marker”), Kaluaaha Church (Molokai’s first Christian church built in 1833), Halawa Beach Park, and Halawa Bay.” It really was a pretty and interesting drive.

In all, it took us about two hours to get from our cottage on the western end of the island to the Halawa Beach Park, which the same GoHawaii.com site described as…

“Halawa Beach Park has two swimming beaches, called Kaili and Kaiwili, located in Halawa Bay along Molokai’s eastern shore. During summer the water is usually very nice, though the beach should be avoided during times of high surf or rough water, especially during the winter months (October – March).”

Some stuff I’d read said the locals were not always welcoming to visitors. Having been there, I can now understand why. It was off the beaten path, quiet, peaceful. It was definitely a place where it felt like one could go to get away from it all. And when you live in a place like Hawaii, which draws people from all walks of life to catch their own glimpse of paradise, peaceful spots are not always easy to come by.

Of the four islands we visited, Molokai was definitely the least touristy, but people do still visit. And, unfortunately, not all outsiders are considerate of others. There was a small tour van in the parking lot, but, other than us, it was mostly locals hanging out, enjoying the park. Rather than take offense at local attitudes, we respected their place. We didn’t experience any hostility, but the park definitely had a locals-only feel, so we didn’t linger too long.

There were plenty of places to pull off if we’d wanted to stop for a swim. The southern side of the island is much more swimmable than the more-exposed western end.

That cove and the water near the outcrop pictured below would have been great places to snorkel.

 

 

The road along the southern coast eventually petered out and cut north to head up and over the eastern tip of the island. It was cool to see the northwestern shore of Maui across the water.

 

 

It was a fun drive. I really had no idea what to expect when we reached the beach park.

The entrance was definitely not what I had pictured.

Not that I’d had any real, solid, preconceived notion of what it might look like. It just didn’t look real beachy. Until we got a little further into the park and its small parking area.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We could have lingered longer, but we were both getting hungry. Thirsty, too. So we decided to head west, back toward civilization, to see what sort of interesting place we could find to eat. We settled on Hiro’s Ohana Grill at the lovely Hotel Molokai. We arrived between lunch and dinner, so there weren’t many people there. We had to settle for pub fare instead of full meals, but the selection of appetizers we chose to she were delicious. The beer was cold and refreshing, too.

 

 

 

It was a lovely way to end our excursion to Hanawa Beach.

 

I found the video embedded below on Hiro’s website. There were no luau dancers there during our visit. It was such a lovely spot, we even went back a day or so later for our final dinner on Molokai.

The hotel seems like it would have been a lovely place to stay. It was quiet, but not nearly as people-free as our cottage on the western shore. The hotel is far closer to swimming and snorkeling options, as well as the town of Kaunakakai, but I’m still glad we stayed at our cottage. The “wilder” beaches there were part of what made our stay on the island so peaceful and magical.

All in all, if we ever return to Hawaii, I would certainly not be opposed to visiting Molokai again, time permitting. I think you really need to spend several days on the island to appreciate its beauty.

There’s not much to do there compared to Oahu, Maui, and the Big Island, so if you’re someone who needs a huge variety of fancy restaurants, shops, tours, and other organized activities to entertain you and/or your significant other or family, it may not be the place for you. But if you are, like me, content to just wander around, soaking in the amazing natural beauty of a place, Molokai is really an amazing place.

It seems so long ago that we were actually in Hawaii, I’m almost embarrassed to post any more vacation pics. But I took so many. LOL. AND, how can I stop chronicling the adventure when I’m only about halfway through?

When planning the trip, one of the reasons I selected that particular cottage on Molokai was its proximity to a big beach that’s often deserted. Never mind the fact that the surf is too rough for swimming. The thought of having a three-mile stretch of beach all to ourselves was pretty enticing.

It was close enough that we could have walked to get there, but we decided to drive.

We’d actually seen the park from the road the day we arrived. When driving to the cottage for the first time, we’d missed our turn. I only realized we’d gone too far when I saw the sign for the beach park.

So, when we finally rustled-up enough gumption to actually leave the resort property about three days into our stay, we drove over to the park to see the big beach.

It was amazing.

It really was just as big, beautiful, and deserted as had been described.

Like the beaches closer to our cottage, there were some very rocky stretches, but there were also a lot of sandy areas.

The sand actually seemed to have a slightly more-reddish cast to it.

We walked a bit. Gawked a bit. Sat and pondered life for a bit. And I took far too many pics of the water.

It was perfect. Not too hot. Quiet. Unpopulated.

The water was completely mesmerizing for me.

It really was a special place. Not just Papohaku Beach Park, Molokai in general.

So many interesting colors and textures. With a constant soundtrack of crashing surf, waves retreating over sand, songbirds singing… it really was paradise.

And, to that point, we’d still only seen very small pieces of the island.

The next day, we actually drove to the other end of the island to see an extra-special beach I’d seen described in some of the literature. We finally got to see a black-sand beach up close with our own eyes.

More on that in the next post…

This post is a continuation of another post where I started sharing a bunch of images captured during our stay on Molokai in April. To see the first installment, CLICK HERE.

Basically, we spent a lot of time sitting on our patio, relaxing. I am not usually a napper, even on vacation, so I spent a lot of time just sitting, watching and listening to the waves. When I got tired of sitting still, I’d walk down to the beach. There’s always something to do at the beach, even if it’s just standing there, toes in the water, watching as the breakers roll in. Sometimes Mike would come along, but he gets bored with stuff more-quickly than me.

I shared this same satellite map view in another post. The red arrow points to our cottage, the blue arrow points to our cottage beach, and the green arrow points to the bigger beach south of the cottage resort complex, which I came to refer to as the “rock shelf” beach.

Standing on the point of land just beyond the pool area, I was tickled to see a cool lava-rock formation that’s been carved by the surf. It’s only visible when the tide is out.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I could, and did, spend hours just walking along that beach, looking at the rocks, watching and listening to the waves pounding against the shore. It was very relaxing. Definitely fodder for future daydreams.

Some people might get bored in a place like that, so isolated and free of people with all their man-made noise. It was not a “quiet” place, i.e., absence of sound, but the sounds of nature are music to my ears.

I still have lots more Molokai pics to share. Work has gotten busy, which is why I’ve been delayed. Again. The older I get, the less-inclined I am to want to look at a computer screen during my off hours. After a while, it starts to feel like I’m living my life in a video game. This new job, while definitely better than the last, is still intense. Everything is on a tight deadline. And there are never enough hours in a day to get it all done. We are building a new team and working the kinks out of all-new processes, which will make things easier one day, but things are not easy right now.

I guess I’ll finish sharing vacation pics eventually.

I have been “working” on this post for days. As with most of my posts, I start by looking through pics and isolating those I want to share. I save a copy of shareable pics to a certain folder so I can re-size them, crop, zoom, etc. When I finished that exercise for the Molokai images, I probably had about 200 images to share. Really.

That’s a lot of images for a blog post. I started tossing images that I thought maybe no one but me would really want to see, but then I stopped. I have lots of pics I think should be shared so I’m going to share them. No one HAS to look, right? LOL.

Molokai really was awesome. And I only gave y’all a little peek so far. Now I’m going to fill-in the gaps.

LOCATION

Molokai isn’t a big island, but it’s diverse. Anyone who stumbles across this post, loves what they see, and decides they really want to visit the island and experience what they see in the pics, would be sorely disappointed if they stayed elsewhere on the island. Because the beaches are very different in other parts of the island.

Our cottage is located on the far western tip of Molokai. There’s an old hotel (no longer operational) and a bunch of cottages at the complex. There’s a lovely swimming pool that sits on a bluff overlooking the beach and a tiny little convenience store, which is open daily and chock-full of essentials.

Driving from the airport to the cottage, my eyes were drawn to the amazingly vivid contrast between the red ground and the blue sky and the big, puffy, white clouds. The following image captured it pretty well, but seeing it in person is always better.

PROPERTY DESCRIPTION

It’s a little weird having the old, abandoned hotel right there, but it’s reasonably well-maintained. The building that features prominently in many of my pics was the beach rental/snack shop/bath-house (I think) for the hotel. It’s kind of in disrepair and should probably be torn down, but it’s not so much of an eyesore that it needs razing immediately. It didn’t bother me at all, it just became part of the scenery. It did obstruct our view of the water and beach a bit, but it was still such a fabulous view that I wouldn’t even think to complain.

Really, how could anyone complain about that view? And it was so close to the water, it was impossible NOT to hear the waves.

There were actually several beaches within walking distance. In the satellite map view shown below, the red hour points to our cottage, the blue arrow points to our cottage beach, and the green arrow points to a bigger beach just south of the cottage, which I came to refer to as the “rock shelf” beach. The cottage beach was busier than the rock shelf beach, but “busy” is relative. The most people we saw on the cottage beach at any one time was maybe 12, certainly no more than 20. And usually both beaches were empty.

When I got tired of sitting on the patio, staring out at the water, I’d go to the beach. When I got tired of being on the beach, I’d return to the cottage and stare at the water some more. Hubby spent most of his time on the patio.

In case anyone is interested in renting the same cottage, here’s their website. I actually found the cottage at VRBO.com first. There are other places to rent on the island, but no major chain hotels. The cottage may not be idyllic at all times of the year — they can be plagued by rodents and/or insects at certain times of the year — but it was perfect for us.

COTTAGE BEACH

All of these images were either captured from the patio or on/around “cottage beach.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Next up… the rock shelf beach. 🙂

I’m not nearly as good at photography as I would like to be. It takes a lot of time, skill, knowledge, patience, and a very steady hand. But I think I capture some pretty good snapshots.

There was much to photograph in Hawaii. As much as I love sunsets, I had to try and capture that one, good shot-of-a-lifetime.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I captured lots of sunset pics, but I haven’t captured that once-in-a-lifetime shot yet. I’ll just have to keep on trying.

Just when you think life has settled down, something else crops up. This has been a busy year for me. There have been multiple trips to my Dad’s house to help him deal with some health issues, most of which are still unresolved. He’s doing okay, but we are still working on things and I’d rather not go into detail. I will likely need to go up and spend time with him on a more-regular basis, to help him manage a variety of little things that have just become too much for him.

May 1-5, I went to visit a friend. May 9-12 I was at Dad’s again. Then, the biggest and brightest “upheaval”… I started a new job May 13, so had to spend the 13-16 in Raleigh, North Carolina. The job I started in September with the employer based in Minnesota was not a good fit for me. After being laid off from my last two jobs with a little over a year at each of those employers, I hated even the thought of looking for another job. I don’t want to be a job-hopper. Really. But the role at the Minnesota company would have required a whole lot of stress with the potential for many long days/extra hours. I’m not opposed to long days on occasion, but knowing it was more likely to be the norm than the exception didn’t appeal to me. And when an opportunity presented itself sort of out-of-the-blue, I went for it. I think it’s going to be a MUCH better fit for me.

During these unsettled times, thoughts of our Molokai cottage help sustain me. It really was a magical place. The setting was perfect. Hubby described it as an oceanfront cottage at a sparsely populated resort in the middle of nowhere. But I am getting ahead of myself…

Of all the Hawaiian islands we visited, Molokai was the smallest. It was also the least-populated by residents and tourists alike. There’s not even a single traffic light on the island! No lifeguards, either, so common sense was required.

Getting to Molokai was a little adventure for us in and of itself. I did not book those flights much in advance. I think I booked the Molokai trip two days prior to the actual journey. There are a couple of small airlines that have regular island-to-island flights. We chose to fly with Mokulele airlines, despite some mixed reviews we saw online, and we could not have been happier with the service.

It was a wee disconcerting for me being able to see the landing gear from my window. Later, Hubby reported that he saw the other wheel from his window.

They assigned seats at the “terminal” which was more like a trailer. The kind used as auxiliary classrooms at over-crowded elementary schools. We all, maybe eight passengers total, lined up at the gate — a six-foot tall wire fence — ordered by weight then walked out across the tarmac like a line of schoolchildren to board the airplane. I think there were seats for about 12 passengers in all. It felt more like a sightseeing tour than a journey. I’m glad it wasn’t a scheduled, three-hour tour! 🙂

In all, I think the flight took about 30 minutes.

We arrived on the island earlier than anticipated. Not knowing how long the drive to the Honolulu airport would require at rush hour, we left our North Shore house sooner than we needed to and arrived at the terminal a couple of hours before our scheduled flight. Rather than let us sit, waiting, the airline just put us onto the next flight, which was pretty awesome, except we couldn’t check into our cottage until about 3:00.

We stopped in the town of Kaunakakai, population 3,425 at the 2010 census, for a leisurely brunch. We finished shortly after noon. Since we had a few hours to kill, we decided to head up to Pālāʻau State Park, a place I’d seen described as having a scenic overview of the historic Kalaupapa peninsula, an isolated and hard-to-reach piece of land to which persons with Hansen’s Disease (leprosy) were once banished. I’d also read that there was a short trail leading to a phallic stone thought to enhance fertility. Who can resist a good penis-shaped rock?

As I’d read, there was an overlook from which you can see the leper town. Look closely and you’ll see the beach on the left is composed of regular sand, but the beach on the right is a black-sand beach.

Many people think there’s one black-sand beach in Hawaii, but there are actually many.

Because of the low clouds, the air was very moist, but cool. It almost felt like we were walking though a rain forest. There were other people there, but only a few. And they were quiet, which was nice. The dense carpet of pine needles helped muffle unwelcome sound.

There was interestingness everywhere. In so many ways, Hawaii is a bit unreal.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We could have paid an exorbitant price to ride mules down very narrow trails along crazy-steep cliffs to tour the leper colony, but we chose not to. Instead, we drove back across the middle of the island to the western edge, which is where we’d booked a cottage.

I don’t think I ever took a picture of the front side of the cottage. It was kind of unremarkable.

 

I’ll never forget that sight. I stared at it for days. It’s what kept me from blogging or otherwise doing anything that required my attention for more the a few minutes, especially if it meant staring at electronics.

We didn’t do a whole lot on Molokai.

 

 

Yes, we could hear the waves at night. It was so loud, you couldn’t NOT hear it. It was amazing.

 

We never did eat in the kitchen. What meals we prepared at the cottage, we ate on the patio. Can you blame us?

 

The sunset that first night was a little disappointing, but there would be other sunsets.

And even a sunset like that, which is far from the prettiest one I have ever seen or captured, is a beautiful sight to see. It really was the perfect location, and we enjoyed five very relaxing nights there.

I have lots more pics to share.