Bye bye, magnificent Maui! 🌺🤙🏼☀️🐢

8 September 2018

Argh, what happened last night?! Cornelia woke shortly after midnight, and would t settle back in her bed. I managed to get her back to sleep in our room, then she woke again and asked to go back to her bed. With me. So I stayed. Only to be woken again some time after 03:00, with her climbing on top of me and crying that she’d done a bit of a wee. I whisked her off to the bathroom to finish it off, while I changed the sheet. I am grateful that it was just a few drops rather than a complete soaking, but with two of us in bed, I didn’t want either of us to roll onto it!

Needless to say, I wasn’t my smiliest even when she poked me awake at 08:00 to say “Good morning!”. Through bleary eyes, I smiled as cheerfully as I could, suggesting that we went into our bedroom for a cuddle with Daddy. I was, of course, hoping for a few more minutes of shut eye, but Daddy was up and having a shave, so that idea was out of the window!!

Instead, I dragged my running kit on and, with Ian’s encouragement, convinced myself that going out for even ten minutes would be better than not going, and although it may not wake me up, I certainly wouldn’t regret it. It was a tough old run, but of course, you never regret going for a run, and I felt mentally terrific, for forcing myself out when I least felt like it. I was only expecting to go for twenty minutes, but I know what my mind is like, and I pushed on for thirty just to prove to myself that I could!

As it is now Saturday, the beach and the parks were already busy, as families set up for birthday parties (complete with bouncy castle) and street vendors started firing up their grills. This run had the most “atmosphere” about it, despite my lack of energy!

When I got back, Bugsy and Ian had both had breakfast, so as I cooled down, I chucked Cornelia’s swimsuit on and once I’d necked a coffee, we set off for the beach one last time. We had arranged a complimentary late checkout for 13:00, and it was now 10:30, so we had about an hour and a half of playtime. We saw a tandem paraglide descend and then land on the green, just as we were walking by, which was exciting for Bugsy who exclaimed that when she was older, we would have to come back here, so she could do one of those!

Our little beach was much busier today, but we were very happy that our sand boat from yesterday had survived the night and set up just next to it again. I wanted to get straight in the water for a swim, and miraculously, happened upon two turtles almost immediately, just a bit further out than most of the swimmers. I was able to dive down and watch them for a while before they swam back out to sea, but even swimming back to shore, there was another turtle who handy yet been spotted! What a fabulous ten minutes I had!!

Once I was out of the water, Ian took Cornelia in for a body board session, although the waves weren’t as good as they had been the last few days. Nonetheless, she had buckets of fun trying to sit, then stand on her board, and watching the turtle that came in close to shore. She also rediscovered the joy of sitting in the water as it rushes over you then pulls you back out, although washing the sand out of her bottom later proved challenging!!!

Sadly we then had to say goodbye to the beach, and walked back to the condo, lizard-spotting as usual. I made lunch while Ian and Cornelia showered, then I also showered. Although we’ve had two bathrooms, our shower is big enough for two, so Cornelia has showered with one of us every day, and it’s much more efficient!

It was a race against time to get everything packed, as ever, but finally we were done. We ate lunch before we left, letting Cornelia distract herself with some TV (nothing scary this time!!) while she scoffed her sandwich.

And that was it! Uber called, we sat outside waiting for it to arrive. In comedy fashion, I watched the Uber App, as our driver went up the wrong road, then back down and up the right road, only to drive right past us! Anyway, he dropped us off at the Queen Ka’ahumano Center and I ventured inside to find out about their free left luggage.

The woman who was supposed to be manning Guest Services had disappeared for a bit, but eventually returned. I explained what we hoped for, and then went to get Ian with the luggage. We were able to put it in the storage room for free until 16:30, so we had two hours of time to wander around the mall. Bugsy was after another chocolate frozen yoghurt and we were happy to oblige her, as we needed some time to sort out our time in Toronto later this week.

As I continued the search for our best options, Ian took Cornelia off for a walk around and found a little play area for her, so we relocated there until it was time to collect our bags and summon yet another Uber.

He dropped us off at the airport, and it is a lovely little airport! First you have to have your hold luggage scanned on entry by the Agriculture department. Then we went to repack some of our stuff, to even out the loads and reduce our hand luggage. At bag drop off, everything went smoothly, and we went through the usual security checks without any problems. With about three hours to pass, we decided to have tea first, and went to “Sammy’s Beach Bar and Grill” as Cornelia wanted to sit next to the window and watch the aeroplanes. She was really tired from her restless night, so was being quite hard work, bursting into tears and screaming loudly if she felt wronged or misunderstood in any way. In any event, she barely looked out of the window, as once again, we resorted to her Kindle for distraction and entertainment. I don’t really like doing this, but I wanted her to sleep on the plane, and in order to do that, I needed her to be as calm as possible beforehand. I know from past experience that when she’s tired, she can cry for a very long time!!

Once we’d eaten (chilli for me, fish ‘n’ chips for Ian, mac ‘n’ cheese for Bugsy) we left the restaurant and sat in the outdoor courtyard in the middle of the airport. It was still warm and humid, and both Ian and I got quite hot with Cornelia alternating laps to sit on!

Our gate was the furthest away so we took our time to walk there, with Cornelia swinging over the stripes in the carpet and racing Daddy on the travelator. She was managing to keep her cool despite her tiredness and we were managing to keep her happy!

There was already a queue to board, but we weren’t in a rush to get on, and waited for it to become shorter before we said a final farewell to Maui and found our seats on board.

Cornelia was allowed to watch the rest of The Gruffalo’s Child before she agreed to lie down on my lap for her sleep and amazingly, hurrah, it worked! When she wakes, hopefully we will be landing in Seattle, ready to find our train to Vancouver.

I feel quite sad about leaving – we have really loved our time here, despite having done so little! Perhaps that is exactly what we all needed.