Marc's Public Blog - Flying

(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

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).