Celebrating in paradise

Hello from Maui! I’m here with DD on a bleisure trip that coincides with his birthday.

Bleisure is my new favourite holiday term – it’s when you combine business trips with leisure ones. And it’s going off like a frog in a sock during the cost-of-living crisis as people look for sneaky ways to save on travel.

In our case, DD is going to a sexily named conference called Glom Con … it’s something to do with kidneys … I think. I didn’t ask too many questions, other than “can I come along?”

It starts tomorrow at a very fancy hotel called the Grand Wailea, where hotel rooms run for about $1600 a night, with resort fees on top of that. Blimey! And let’s not forget the endless tipping you have to do every time you breathe in the United States.

Luckily for us DD’s work is paying for the room and I scored frequent flyer flights to Honolulu.

We’ve spent the first two night on Maui at the most gorgeous place called The Inn at Mama’s Fish House.

Mama’s Fish House is one of the top restaurants on the island. I decided I wanted to take DD there for his birthday, but the only way to secure a table was to book a room for the night. Our room is around the same size as my apartment. Huuuuuuuge. We absolutely love it and will be very sad to leave it tomorrow.

We spent DD’s birthday driving the Road To Hana. The 64 mile route is considered to be one of the best road trips in the United States. It’s filled with lush rainforest, dramatic and rugged ocean vistas and countless waterfalls.

It is also so twisty and turny that I was warned I might get car sick. The road is crammed with one-way bridges and hairpin turns. I made DD drive the whole way to Hana and back because I wouldn’t be game to do it even if I was driving on the correct side of the road, let along the wrong side.

We started the journey with coffee and a homemade quiche at Baked On Maui in Haiku. Great quiche, but American coffee is not our favourite. For a start it comes in milkshake-sized cups. It’s also soooo bitter. We got in the car after ordering the smallest sized takeaway cups they had (I think they are American versions of piccolos … but look like our regular cups). We took one sip and I had to duck back inside for more sugar.

Then we hit the road. The scenery was spectacular! We saw so many amazing things.

Unfortunately we didn’t get to see the best black sand beach on the island, sad face, because it required a booking 72 hours in advance. That would have been handy information for Lonely Planet to provide in the $32 Maui guide book that DD sent me to Dymocks to procure prior to our flight.

We drove past Hana to see Wailua Falls, which is regarded as the most beautiful in West Maui, then we wended our way back to Hamoa Beach to have lunch at a huli huli chicken stall on a red sand beach that Gordon Ramsay visited while filming “Gordon Ramsay: Uncharted” a few years ago.

It’s grilled by a bloke called Uncle Russell, who told us Gordon Ramsay’s visit was a gamechanger for them. Watch what he had to say below …

After lunch we went for a dip at Koko Beach.

I refused to go in deeper than mid-thigh because there were no lifeguards and I can’t swim. DD kept gesturing for me to go out further and I kept gesturing “no effing way” back at him. Turns out I made the right decision … THIS was the sign I saw on the way back to the car …

The day ended on such on a high note, with cocktails at sunset at Mama’s Fish House, followed by the most eye-wateringly expensive but delicious dinner.

Actually, everything in Hawaii is eye-wateringly expensive. We ordered a beer and a cocktail on our first night here and the bill was $75 Aussie. Ooooooouch!

Mama’s Fish House is a lovely beachfront restaurant that has been running since the 1970s, when it looked like this …