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This page deals mainly with Maui, which was an exciting experience. So exciting, in fact, that I wrote a review of it the next Monday. Here it is, slightly edited.

WARNING: This message is long. Read at your own risk. And now, it's time for the review of "Maui: The Movie." This movie ran over three days, from Friday, August 1 to Sunday, August 3. The stars of the movie were (in no particular order): Brad Cavanagh - your intrepid reviewer. Andrew van Wensen - one of Brad's roommates, the 4x4 driver. Sara Ellison - One of the Brits, the 4x4 driver distractor. James Morden - The second Brit, friend of Sara, likes to talk a lot, works on setting up cool electronic stuff for big name concerts, flinches when he hears a cellular phone. Meghan Gray - A Canadian (we found another one!) working at the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope who went to Mount Allison but then ended up in Victoria for reasons not made totally clear to your intrepid reviewer. Christina O'Regan - Carleton engineer working at JAC, enjoys hot showers and was sorely disappointed by the tremendous lack of said hot showers at campsites. Mike Ade - (NOT the other Mike) A friend of Christina, the driver of the other car who's going back to Canada some time soon (or so I've been told). The preamble to the trip came on Thursday, when I found out that we were actually leaving Friday morning, and not Friday afternoon, as I was previously lead to believe. This lead to me frantically asking my supervisor if I could get Friday off. After much pleading and begging, I got the green light. Actually, it was more like, "Frossie, can I get Friday off?" "Um, yeah, sure Brad." Friday rolled around, and we headed to the airport. Our flight was leaving Hilo at around 8:40, so we got there at about 7:45. Oh, "we" was me, Andrew, and Sara. We were meeting Meghan, Christina, and Mike there, because Meghan had to drive in from Waimea, which is about an hour away from Hilo. We waited around there for a few minutes, wondering if they were going to show. Christina had all the tickets, so we were getting a tad worried. They showed up, and it was check-in time. As we were walking to our gate, Meghan's bizarre coincidences started making an appearance. Sara's going to Cambridge in October to do her PhD, and, amazingly enough, so is Meghan. That was just the beginning... We met James at the Maui airport because he flew in from Honolulu, and then it was off to the car rental place. We dropped all our luggage off outside, and was there ever a lot! I didn't think seven people could generate that much luggage for a three day trip. Anyways, there was some confusion inside, because none of us were 25 or older, and if you're under 25, you pay an extra $20/day, but we were going through a package deal that waived that extra fee, but the lady wasn't buying it. After some wrangling on Sara and Andrew's part, we got the discount. Me, of course, always thinking, say "Hey, why don't we get the Pathfinder?" It turned out that a 4x4 was only an extra $25/day, but since we got a $20/day discount, it only cost an extra $5/day (that's my reasoning, and I'm sticking to it!). So, we got a 4x4. GMC Jimmy, in case you're interested. There were actually two vehicles, the other being a Buick of some sort. In the 4x4 went me, Andrew, Sara, and James, and Christina, Mike, and Meghan went in the Buick. James brought along some tapes, so we were subjected to a double whammy of the music and his singing. Some of it wasn't bad, like when "Losing My Religion" or "Kokomo" came on, the whole car joined in. Kokomo was rather fitting for our surroundings. Off to Hana. The road to Hana runs along the coastline/jungle of western Maui to, interestingly enough, a town called Hana. It's a narrow, winding road that has 54 bridges. Very picturesque, very beautiful. Very sickening, if you drive it too fast. We stopped off in Paia, which is just before this road, and grabbed some lunch. Best burgers I've had in a long time. Then we were off. We heard stories from people at JAC that this road is virtually guaranteed to induce car-sickness, so I was prepared for a good ride. It wasn't too bad, actually. The scenery was great, but some of the waterfalls were a little disappointing. Nothing "Rainbow Falls"-ish, just wispy falls that cascaded gently over rocks into tranquil pools. There was one fall right next to the road, so your intrepid reporter got under it to cool off. We stopped at a couple places along the way, but nothing particularly spectacular. One thing we did along the Hana Highway (if you can call it that!) was we took a short jaunt along a dirt road to try to see a heiau that was somewhere along the shoreline. Well, we got to the end of this road, after driving through a small creek and nearly running over tens of birds, and got out to look around. A short hike down the shoreline revealed a nice waterfall, but no heiau. I nearly fell into a pond trying to get a picture of this waterfall (on my back, with my head dangerously close to the pond). But alas, we couldn't find the heiau. No matter, because it was a nice break. When we got to Hana (actually, Waianapanapa State Park - where we were camping) we tried to hunt around for the other three. You see, I guess they didn't stop off at as many places as we did, for when we got there, they were already there, and we couldn't find them. We headed off the the right, along the shoreline, to go see a heiau, which is the ruins of a Hawaiian village, temple, place of refuge, whatever you want. On the way there Andrew and I discovered a blowhole-type thing, where the waves would come in and get forced up to blow onto shore. We checked that out for a couple minutes, and got disappointed when nothing big came. We turned around to leave, when all of a sudden I heard a tremendous roar from behind me, and turned around to see Andrew get swamped. Absolutely swamped. He was drenched. Oh, for a camera. A second one came, washed completely over Andrew again, and came to give me a salt water shower. We continued on to catch up to Sara and James, and got some mild ridiculing when we did. Turned back to the campground, and met up with the other three. Of course, they had to ask Andrew and I if we went swimming, as we were still rather wet. After we met up with the others, we decided to head into Hana, a sleepy little town on the eastern tip of Maui. It was sleepy simply because we got there sometime just before 6:30, and nothing was open. Well, not nothing. There were two restaurants open, but we decided not to sample some of their fares. The reason? Well, the first had dinners for $50 a pop, which was a little out of our range. The second had prices a little more respectible, from $19 to $39, but we're all rather poor, being students and all. With luck there was a general store open where we loaded up on foodstuffs. We headed back to Waianapanapa S.P. and set up camp. The camping situation was a little interesting, because Chris (one of my other roommates) skipped out, even though his name was on the permit, and Meghan didn't have a permit, so she had to go as "Chris Salvian" in case we got checked. We didn't, so she didn't get booted out of the park. Camping was just splendiferous. The air was so clear, the stars were so bright, it was as if we could just reach up and brush against the majestic beauty. The occasional satellite made it's slow and unwavering way across the sky, only to blink out when it entered the shadow of the Earth. Meteors flashed over in a brief, yet brilliant life. The Milky Way stood out like a giant river frozen in time as it raged across the sky. The Moon was new, so it was not up to interfere with the celestial wonders. Meghan and I took turns educating and enlightening those not familiar with the night sky. After downing a bottle of wine supplied by James, and noshing on Hershey Kisses supplied by Meghan and strawberry cheesecake supplied by Your Faithful Narrator (sorry, I just finished reading "A Clockwork Orange"), we got in our respective tents and got to sleep. I tented with Andrew, who was fit and determined to make his 6'5" frame take up the entire tent. I was awakened at 2:30 by the water dripping into our tent through the air vents at the top. You see, it was a rather hot night, so I took the outer cover of the tent off to get some more air, thinking that since it was such a beautiful night, nothing could ruin it. I was wrong, and it rained a bit. It wasn't that hard of a rain, and it cooled things off, so I'm not complaining. The next morning we were going to wake up at 5:30 to see the sunrise. I had set my alarm on my watch, but when it sounded at 5:30:00, it subsequently got shut off at 5:30:03, and I went back to sleep. I woke up at around 6:30, and listened to Great Big Sea while waiting for the others to come out of their tents. The shower was a real eye-opener. Nice and brisk, like the water flowing from a mountain stream fed by glaciers hiding in their lofty domains in the Rockies. After showering, we broke camp and headed out. We had a slight rearrangement of automobile participants on Saturday. Christina and Mike decided to go back down the Hana Highway, because the loop continuing on around the island was recommended for 4x4s only. Meghan wanted to do some hiking (like we planned to do), so she came along with us. Thank goodness we got the 4x4, because there's no way we would have fit all the luggage and people into a Geo Metro. Well, unless we wanted to get really friendly. We pushed off from Waianapanapa S.P., heading south. We wanted to stop in at the Seven Sacred Pools (there are actually 24, and none of them are sacred), but apparently we drove right past them. No worries. We pushed on along the southern route, the one that's suggested to be taken by 4wd's only. It was a nice dirt road for a bit, a little narrow, but otherwise fine. One highlight (I think it was a highlight) was running across this old store that made up a town on our maps. Strange how a store can make up an entire town. Also along this road we spotted an old church down on the shore, so we stopped to investigate. As we were walking down to the church, we ran across some endangered Hawaiian Monk seals in a tidal pool-like pool. They were just sitting there, so when I first saw them, I thought they were dead. Then, one of them blinked. Andrew got a little close, so one of them reared up and looked like it was a tad pissed off at our presence. We continued on to the church, which was very peaceful. Only the five of us, not another soul to be seen. The only sign of humanity is the simple church, and our truck on the road. After the church we got onto a paved road, which was better than dirt. More speed, for one. Still narrow, but at least we could get over 20 mph. The terrain was quite desolate and dry, much like the Okanagan in British Columbia. We passed by what looked like a mini army base, out in the middle of nowhere. Eventually we made our way into more fertile lands, and came across a winery. Seeing as it was James' birthday, we stopped in and did a little taste-testing. Some of their stuff wasn't all too bad, and this is coming from someone who doesn't drink wine very often. We walked down the street to get some lunch, then brought it back to the winery where we could picnic, along with a bottle of their champagne. After the winery experience, we continued on to Haleakala National Park. We drove in at around 3:00, and shelled out the $10 admission for the car. We stopped off at Hosmer Grove, which is where we were going to do our camping for the second night. This place is bliss. The first thing that struck me was the smell of the trees, just like walking through a forest back home. The second thing that struck me was the temperature; even though it was a brilliantly sunny day, the air was rather chill, and there was a good wind blowing. We trekked through some nature trails, admiring the floral delights. All sorts of things in there, from Douglas Fir to eucalyptus trees. Mike and Christina hadn't arrived by the time we'd exited the grove, so we headed up the side of Haleakala. First stop was a viewing area at about 9800 feet. The summit is at 10,000 feet, so it's quite high, and altitude sickness is something one might have to worry about. Everybody (except James) has been up to the summit of Mauna Kea, at 13,800 feet, so we were pretty much used to high altitude. The view up there was just spectacular. You're looking over one of the world's largest dormant volcanoes, into a caldera that's so large a city fit in it with room to spare. The surface of the caldera is so rocky, so desolate, so alien that NASA trained for the Moon landings there. Clouds were attempting to push their way into the caldera, but weren't succeeding, leaving the air crisp and clear for some superb viewing. We drove on up to the summit for more great views. The solar observatories they've got there are rather interesting. One (which I assume was the gamma ray observatory) looked like no other scope I've seen before. We saw a few silversword plants, which are only found on Haleakala, pushing my endangered species sightings up to four (silversword, nene, green sea turtle, Hawaiian monk seals). Then, back down to the campsite to see if Christina and Mike were there, which they weren't, so we headed into town to get some food. On the way back we passed Mike, who was driving down to get food. They'd arrived at Hosmer Grove, and Christina stayed behind. At the store I picked up a couple of eclairs. More about them later. We got back to our campsite and made camp. There was an astronomy tour that night, so we went on that. A short walk down the road, and we all laid on our blankets and sleeping bags while two park officials told stories about the stars. As there were three astronomy students there, we were rather critical. The worst part was when one of the park people said Titan was a moon of Jupiter. That was almost too much. The three of us (me, Meghan, and Sara) were going to take over the tour, and show them what's what, but we didn't. We gave little private tours to our friends, though. Meghan beat me to Delphinus, but I got Scorpio! After the tour was over, we tromped back to our tents. I was freezing, because I didn't bring over any long pants, just shorts. My toes were on the brink of turning into ice cubes, but luckily I was wearing my wool socks which fought valiantly with the invading forces of the cold wind. We laid out under the stars again, trying to both keep from freezing and point out what the park people had just failed to show. Meghan shared a number of strange coincidences that have fallen in her lap (such as meeting someone I go to school with at a physics conference -- the others are much more bizarre). And we went to sleep. That night it rained, and I wasn't dumb enough to take the top off the tent, so we stayed dry. I was freezing, even in my sleeping bag, but at least we were dry. Morning came early, as I was awakened by the *beep* *beep* *beep* of my watch alarm going off at 4. "Why so early?" you may ask. Well, we had to get up early to go see the sunrise from atop Haleakala, which is supposed to be one of the best places to see sunrises from. We drove up to a lookout a few hundred feet shy of the summit. All alone. No tourists there to spoil the experience. We had a good omen when a fireball drifted across the sky over the twinkling sea-side cities below us. Superb. That's number two for yours truly. This one was better than the first, for a number of reasons. First, I was able to share it with other people. Second, it was bright green, and the air was crystal clear, clearer than air had ever seemed before. Third, it was in Hawaii. You just can't beat that. After that ethereal experience, I was expecting quite a show. I wasn't too let down. Unfortunately, there were some clouds obscuring the horizon, but we could still see the colours changing as the sun made it way towards the arrival of another day. Beautiful colours, blue, purple, a green band, yellow, orange, red. Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa were two islands floating in a sea of cloud. Clouds came up as we were leaving. We drove back down to Hosmer Grove, and broke camp. Somehow, we had a whole lot more luggage in the back of our Jimmy than we'd started with, even with the addition of Meghan's stuff. I guess luggage is like coat hangers; leave some together by itself and it multiplies. We split ways again, with Christina and Mike heading off to do their own thing, while the rest of us drove up to East Maui, another section that's recommended for 4wd's only. I don't know why, because the whole thing was paved, but narrower than the road to Hana. We stopped at numerous places along the way, simply because the scenery was so beautiful. We got a glorious view of Haleakala with one of the cities waking up to face another day in the valley separating the two sections of Maui. Remember, we'd been up since 4, so we had an early start. There was very little traffic on the road, which was lucky, because this road was very narrow. There were many interesting signs along the way, such as "Narrow Winding Road" (after we've been driving on the bloody thing for 10 miles, I think we could have figured this out for ourselves) and "Do Not Walk Tractors On Road" (yeah, figure that one out!). We weren't submitted to listening to James' music, as Meghan had brought along some tapes. Finally, some decent music! There was another wonderful view (there were many, but this one stood out), this one of a quaint little settling in a valley right next to the sea. Very picturesque. We also stopped in at a grassy region where people had piled up rocks in small towers, as monuments of their existance. That was simply superb. I've never felt so alive! From there we pushed on, and eventually hit the resort area. We tried to find this beach we'd heard about, and after finding there was no parking right next to it, we thought we'd park further away and walk in. The first route we took was no good, as it lead to shoreline but no beach, so we had to trek back along the road to the real beach access. Nice beach, I might say. The water was fairly warm, but it got deep far out. I found that out by trying to reach the bottom, but it eluded me, causing me to nearly take a lungful of salt water. There weren't many fish, from what we could see. I took along my eclairs, in hopes of eating them, but I only took a bite out of one. They'd become a little stale. As we were leaving, we had to wait for various people to finish changing, so I finished off my half-eaten eclair, and offered the other to Andrew. When they (Sara and Meghan) rejoined our merry little group, they thought I'd had both of them. What, does it look like I could eat two eclairs in as many minutes? We stayed around there for about an hour and a half, then went on driving. We got lunch in Lahaina, home of the US's largest banyan tree. After having lunch, we hunted out the two Haagan-Dasz ice cream stores in search of Bailey's-flavoured ice cream. The first one didn't have it, but the second one did, to James' delight. As we were eating our ice cream, Sara and James had an interesting "discussion" about the recent government change in England, which I was hoping would escalate. Unfortunately, they're both nice people and kept it rather calm. We had to be back at the airport for 4, to drop off the car and get there in time for James' flight. We stayed close to the airport, and headed up Iao Valley to see the phallic rock. The thirty minute walk (according to signs) took us about five minutes. Most of our time there was spent by Sara and Meghan (Sara mostly) trying to convince Andrew and I to pose in front of a bucket that said "Butts Only". We didn't, although upon looking back, I think we should have. We tidied up our truck there, getting everything sorted out, and then headed back to the airport. James was flying back via Honolulu (don't ask why - I'm not terribly certain myself), so he had to go earlier than us. We met up with Christina and Mike there, and got on the airplane. After a 20 minute flight home, which consisted of Meghan not getting her Coke, me having the 'scopes on Mauna Kea pointed out for me, and me trying to show Meghan where we live from the air ("See the hospital? We live somewhere near there." I'm not totally sure she saw...), we landed in Hilo to beautiful weather. Collecting our luggage finished off the trip, and we headed to our respective homes. All in all, it was a great trip. I'll give it a 9 out of 10. Any similarities between any persons, living or dead, is strictly intentional. This movie has been rated PG for adult language, although only British people would get it (Oh, bollocks!).