On our second cruise we returned to Maui for a couple of days and this time we had a brief tour of the island outside of the town of Lahaina. Our first stop was at the Maui Tropical Plantation.
The plantation is primarily a tourist attraction – it has an excellent motorized train tour. But it also grows a wide variety of crops which are sold locally. There is need to irrigate though as the plantation is still on the Kona (dry) side of Maui and gets only about 450 mm of rain per year. Here we see some workers in the field. Not quite sure what they are up to, but they’re out there.
Here’s a photo of a (wait for it) Jack Fruit tree.
And here is our guide with an enthusiastic coconut opening demo.
Here are pineapples being cultivated. Dole and Del Monte used to have huge pineapple plantations in Hawaii but that’s all gone now because of high labor and land costs. Most canned pineapple comes from Thailand and the Philippines now, and fresh pineapple is grown in Costa Rica for North American markets.
And here they grow bananas for the local market.
Coffee plants here. Those mountains in the background stop most of the rain from getting here.
And here’s where all that water ends up. In the Iao valley on the other side of the mountains, they get 9800 mm of rain per year – over 20 times the amount on the dry side.
Lots of lovely little streams running down the valley.
This is the Iao peak. We were lucky to get a good view as it’s very often foggy and rainy here.
A bit better look at the Iao peak and the rugged valley beside it. Hard to imagine the difference between this area and the sunny dryness of Lahaina only 30 minutes away.
From here you can look all the way down the valley to the sea. Very cool.
I hope you enjoyed this look at the other side of Maui.
