We went back to Upcountry this morning, arriving in Makawao just in time for lunch at Freshies. Makawao is billed as Maui’s cowboy town, but you wouldn’t know it from the restaurants, shops, glassblowers, and galleries which line the rather small downtown area.

We spent an hour or so after lunch shopping and enjoying the scenery before moving on to our next stop, Surfing Goat Dairy for a “casual tour” and goat cheese tasting. The goat cheese was delicious, and the tour let us pet and feed goats before watching them being milked (they do it a dozen goats at a time – by the time the milker had hooked the last goat up to the machine, the first goat was already finished).

After goats, it was time for booze – we drove four minutes to Ocean Vodka for a tour and tasting. We missed most of the tour but we were there for the full tasting (one vodka, three rums, and a gin, all made with sugarcane grown on the property)!

After booze, it was time for dessert at Ululani’s Shave Ice in Kaluhui. Before the Lahaina fire last year, they had a location at the Hyatt Regency at the south end of the Beachwalk, and we’d walk there once or twice during our week on Maui. They closed that location after the fire, so I was glad to find the Kahului location just a couple of blocks off the most direct route back to the Nanea.

We got back to our villa just after sunset. The sky looked interesting, so we went down to the Beachwalk to see it better.

It gets dark quickly here!

We had great plans for today. We were going to pick up fins and go snorkeling in the morning and walk the Beachwalk to the Hyatt Regency to visit the penguins in the afternoon.

After a leisurely breakfast in our villa and a long visit to the craft fair on the hotel lawn, we drove over to The Snorkel Store to pick up the fins. We were greeted by a very pleasant staff member, Ana, and we spent nearly an hour with her. She gave us maps and suggestions for good places to snorkel, and where to look for parking near each of them; she showed us webcams for a few of those spots; she fitted us for fins and gave us the secret for putting them on more easily – she shared lots of information and we left happy. And ready for lunch.

So we walked down the Beachwalk to Whaler’s Village and one of our favorite restaurants, Leilani’s on the Beach, where we had an enjoyable lunch with foofy drinks and complimentary Hula Pie. I wanted to walk lunch off by going the rest of the way to the Hyatt and the penguins, but it was not to be – Diane had walked too far in her flip-flops and her feet were killing her. Fortunately, the Westin complex runs a shuttle to Whaler’s Village; we caught it and took the easy way back to Nanea.

Instead of snorkeling, we went to the hot tub and soaked, then went back to our villa to rest and recover from our arduous day.

Eventually, we roused ourselves to get dinner, which meant a walk to the north end of the Beachwalk. The sun had set a few minutes before we left, and the sky was glorious.

After dinner, we took one more walk on the Beachwalk to do some stargazing; even with the resorts and houses nearby, the sky here is still dark enough to see the Milky Way fairly easily from the section of the Beachwalk behind the “Kai Alai Homeowners Association”. And unlike stargazing in Iceland, we could wear shorts!