(If you do not see any track on the map, click on '07 Day 05: Maui Flight' in the upper right corner twice).
As part of our vacation in Maui, I figured a good way to have another view of everything we visited, and a peek at what we couldn't visit like the neighbouring islands). It was nice to see the coastlines we had driven on, and especially the long sliding sands trail that we didn't hike all the way to the end :)
You can see many more pictures of our Maui Trip here.
Just like Hawaii last year, it made sense to rent a plane with a CFI and just do the scenic flight without the need to be checked out. On Maui, Maui Aviators was the place to go for renting a GA aircraft with a CFI if you don't get checked out. At a few times, it was also nice to hand out the controls to the CFI and let him fly while I was too busy taking pictures of a waterfall while we were in a steep turn close to the rocks :)
The flight started with the north of Maui, and its crappy one lane dirt road :)
the 'fun' one lane dirt road full of blind turns portion of Hwy 340
We then flew towards Molokai Island:
Molokai waterfalls
Molokai's Kalaupapa Airport
Molokai Leper Colony
Molokai Airport
Molokai reef
After that, we headed for the coast of Lanai:
The non pretty side of Lanai
Before heading back towards the main island of Maui on the Lahaina side:
Lahaina
Jet Skis
and transitionned to the other half of Maui, starting with the Kihei coast:
North Kihei
South Kihei
Kamaole Beach Park
South Kihei Boat Ramp we go diving from
Wailea
Wailea
Makena
Little Beach, just north of Big Beach
Big Beach
We then did a little side step to Molokini which has such incredibly clear waters and good diving:
Molokini
and back to South Maui:
Big Beach
The other 'fun' dirt road, south Maui. At least this one is a 2 way road
We then 'climbed' to the top Haleakala a bit quicker than it takes to drive and hike :) and had a look at
The observatories at the top of Haleakala
Sliding Sands Trail
The Pu'uo we spent 1H to hike down to
The ambitious hiker can actually hike all the way down to the beach from 10,000ft
After that, we flew from South Maui (through the seven sacred pools), to West Maui/Hana, and Hana Airport (including the trike from Hand Gliding Maui), and back to Kahului:
yes, they have nice waterfalls
The big waterfall is the end of Pipiwai trail
Seven Sacred Pools
Hamoa Beach south of Hana
Hana's Red Sand Beach
Luana Spa where we stayed in Hana
Hana Airport with its Hand Gliding Trike Base
The Winding Road to Hana
More Wining Road to Hana
Back to Kahului Airport
The flight was just around 3H, a good way to see Maui and the nearby islands.
If you wish, here is a link to a big georeferenced map of the Maui Flight (you can turn on display of other gps tracks by clicking on their name in the upper right corner twice).
