We landed really early and grabbed our hire car, which was a Mazda CX5, and set out to explore the NW corner of the island but after driving for more than an hour along the winding Kahekili highway, we found that the road as blocked before Nakalele point! I took some pictures to prove we were out that way, and then we headed back to go from the other side, with a stop in Lahaina for lunch.
Lahaina was the former capital of Hawaii, and the Front Street seems to be where all the tourist action is. We had lunch at the Paia Fish market, which was quite popular and the fish was quite well done as well. The kids enjoyed their fish and chips, whereas I had the fish tacos and hubby had grilled Mahi Mahi.
There are some huge Banyan trees in the park!
We then drove further up to Ka'ananpali looking for the Whaler's museum which turned out to be closed for renovations, so the kids went to the beach which was quite lovely.
Further up we got to a blowhole and heart shaped rock which needed a bit of walking to get to (but the blowhole could be seen from the car park). If you caught it at the right time, there was a rainbow in the droplets from the blowhole!
We stayed at the Four Seasons in Wailea, which was our splurge hotel of the trip, and it was a really lovely hotel. When we arrived our car was valet parked (which unfortunately was at a cost of $30 per day and not very convenient to us) and we were given leis of flowers and nuts as a welcome. The children were made to feel very welcome too, with an octopus soft toy and sponges near the bath spelling out both their names. Small notes to the kids, and room amenities like beach bag, nice slippers, and robes for all four of us made it feel that much more luxurious.
And the view from our balcony was pretty awesome!
After cleaning up we went down to have dinner at Spago's, which was one of the restaurants within the hotel. It's an upmarket modern hawaiian restaurant, and they had a kids menu as well as colouring to entertain them.
I ordered 2 mocktails - one for the kids which my daughter quite liked.
Entrees were Japanese Hamachi and Ahi Poke cones. I quite liked the crispy cone that my poke was in (poke is raw sliced fish salad, and ahi is tuna) and it was quite spicy. However, it clearly wasn't for everyone as the next table barely touched theirs, and I almost felt like asking to eat theirs for them so it wouldn't go to waste!
For mains we had caramelised pork chop and macadamia encrusted mahi mahi. Both of which were on a beetroot flavoured poi base (taro) which made the poi so much more palatable.
For dessert we had Kaiserschmarren creme fraiche strawberry souffle pancake, which basicallly looked like an exploded souffle. It was very tasty, but we were so full by then, it was difficult to enjoy. The restaurant looked over the pool which was nicely lit at night. Time for a well earned sleep in our comfy 5 star hotel beds!
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