For our stay in Maui we were booked in to the Inn at Mama’s Fish House; a group of holiday cottages clustered around a famous fish restaurant. When we checked in we were upgraded to a two-bedroom garden cottage, it was beautiful, really spacious, tastefully furnished and recently fully refurbished at great expense. We discovered a welcome tray in the kitchen with the usual tea and coffee but also a loaf of homemade banana cake, a huge fresh papaya and a fresh lime – that was breakfast sorted for one morning. Having had an early start we didn’t stray far that afternoon, but we did walk through the restaurant to see the beach. The setting was idyllic, a beautiful tropical garden opened on to a grove of palm trees and a virtually private beach, technically all the beaches in Hawaii are open to the public but this was as private as could be. The beach was steep and there was a reef off shore which protected it from the surf, in between was an area of rock pools. Not really a swimming beach but great to sit and gaze at.

We had dinner at Mama’s that night, the food was fabulous but very expensive, not surprising, apparently it is regularly voted one of the top ten restaurants in the US! Mark had a Penang coconut curry with three types of fish, and I had Mahi-mahi grilled in a ti leaf and served with coconut rice, both were delicious. We decided to provide for ourselves on the second night but made sure we had a table booked for the third night.

Wednesday morning we decided to drive into the nearby town of Paia for breakfast and a look around, it was a pretty little town with a frontier feel and a mixture of restaurants and surf shops. Most importantly it had two hairdressers, we were both looking the worse for lack of haircuts. Neither hairdresser could fit us both in that day but Mark got his cut at Hairbenders and The Loft Salon found me an appointment later that afternoon. Across the road we found a large organic grocery store, it had a lovely salad bar area so we stocked up on salad and fresh fruit to take back for dinner that night.

On Thursday we decided to explore the Hana Highway, a main road running along the North shore to the town of Hana. It was only about 36 miles but the guide books promised 59 single lane bridges and 600+ bends, the return trip takes over 6 hours so we decided to go half way and see how we got on. It was a lovely drive through rainforest and passing waterfalls that are popular swimming spots. Unfortunately Mark couldn’t really enjoy the scenery because he was watching the bends, the bridges and the mad tourist coming the other way, it was also very busy so we couldn’t park at any of the waterfalls. We made it to the half way point and stopped for lunch at a little road side café called Aunty Sandy’s Then we turned around and headed back to the cottage.

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Back at Mama’s we walked down to the beach and spotted three giant green turtles in amongst the rocks, we watched them for ages and it was a real treat.

We packed our bags ready for an early start in the morning then headed to the restaurant for cocktails and dinner. Another great meal, we shared a starter of deep fried prawns with a macadamia nut dipping sauce, then we both had a fish called oki, mine was steamed with ginger and served with sizzling peanut oil, and Marks was served with mushrooms and a white wine sauce. For dessert we shared the house special, Tahitian Black Pearl which was a very posh version of the oyster ice creams you can get from ice cream vans at home, this one was a rich glossy chocolate mousse in a crisp pastry shell.

Our time in Maui was short but we did enjoy it. Next stop Hawaii (known as The Big Island).