Maui #11 - Goat Cheese & Craters

This morning we headed up the side of Haleakala to the Surfing Goat Dairy. We'd had reservations for their Grand Dairy Tour. The Dairy is located on the lower slopes of the huge volcanic mountain, Haleakala. We followed the directions carefully, but we still ended up on the wrong road. Our little car sped up the hill while Hilary and I tried to read the map. Instead of driving up the correct road and arriving on time, I took the Scenic Route and looped up higher on the mountain and drove down to the goat farm.

We zipped into the parking lot about 10 minutes late (Yikes!). One of the staff members spied us and waved us into our parking spot.

"Are you the Canadians?" he asked.

"Yes," I answered. "I'm sorry. We got terribly lost."

"That's the good thing about living on an island," he grinned. "You're never lost for long!"

We joined about 15 other people, including three or four pre-schoolers, and walked over to the goat pens with the owner. This farm was started by a German couple. She was a school teacher and he owned a large software company. I think they moved to the US some years ago. When they moved to this location, they decided to start a small goat dairy, making goat cheese just for their own consumption. However, it began to grow quickly. Now they have about 20 different flavours of goat cheese, ship it all over the world, win contests for goat cheese and made a profit of about $250,000 last year.

They have two kinds of goats: Alpine and Saanen (I think those were the names). The owner, Thomas, introduced us to each goat by name. He refers to the females as "The Ladies."

After a leisurely stroll around the edges of a couple of the pens, Thomas took us back to where the goats are milked. There, one of his staff showed us the system they have for milking the does. He always referred to the goats as "The Girls" and he, also, knew each one by name and temperment. He had kept about six of The Girls back from the regular early morning milking so that we'd have a chance to see the process.

The goats were starting to line up to enter the milking area (they get fed as they are milked). It was very amusing to see two of the goats line up and then give up their places for the Alpha Female. She didn't push them out of the way, but just got in line behind them and watched as they both moved out of her way.

The staff guy began the procedure, talking about milking techniques and tricks the whole time. Then, before hooking The Girls up to the milking machines, he gave us a chance to milk one. Hilary overcame her hesitancy and gave it a shot. And the milk just shot out!  She said it felt "gross."

Next, Thomas took us into the milk processing area. He told us how, about 50 years ago, dairy experts put together an 1800-page manual for all dairy farmers. Even as a goat farmer, he's required to follow these procedures. Thomas said that the problem is that the manual was written for farmers with cows and without modern milking machines. As a result he had to spend thousands of dollars installing a series of sinks and water systems in the first room of the dairy. These sinks were intended for dairy farmers to wash themselves and then their milk cans before taking the milk from the dairy. But Thomas doesn't need to use milk cans! This whole room is redundant. He said they use the sinks for washing herbs and vegetables.

The room where the milk is pasteurized and the cheese is made was spotless. The pasteurizing machines positively lit up the room they were so shiny. The cheese process was very interesting, but Hilary got a little bored. Of course, her biggest problem is that she thinks she doesn't like goat cheese. Silly girl. When it came to the cheese tasting, she wouldn't try even one mouthful. All the more for me! Goat cheese is one of my favourites.

At last we finished in the dairy and headed for some picnic tables where Thomas trotted out almost every flavour he has going. There was cheese with horseradish (surprisingly good!), cheese with fruit, cheese with herbs, cheese with chilies, cheese with grape leaves (my favourite), cheese with smoked fish (my second favourite), plain cheese, and others I've forgotten. They were all fabulous -- and very mild. I rather like the zing most goat cheese has, but this cheese had only a tiny zing. Anyone would enjoy it. Hilary would have loved it if she'd tried it.

And that was the end of our tour ... a very pleasant few hours.

From the goat farm, Hilary and I headed further up the mountain. It was partly cloudy (even with a few drops of rain falling occasionally) at the farm. As we drove up the hillside, we began to drive through the clouds. Our destination was the summit for a hike into the crater.

As we drove through the increasingly dense clouds, we just hoped the clouds would end before we reached the top. Sure enough, they did. Gradually, we saw more and more light and soon were driving in brilliant sunshine.

At the Visitor Centre (about 100 feet below the summit), we parked our car and donned our sweaters. It was much, much warmer than it had been last week at dawn. It was still windy, but didn't feel like it was going to blow us off the mountain. We loaded up with our backpacks and water and headed for the trailhead.

Sliding Sands Trail goes from the Visitor Centre directly into the crater. As we started the trail, we walked slowly around the edge of a small rocky hill and then over the lip of the crater and down into the moonscape. We walked slowly because, at that altitude, the air is quite thin. Even going downhill, I wanted to take it easy. The trail is quite easy to walk. It gently hairpins down the first steeper section and then loops across the wall of the crater, heading further in and farther down. We only went to the first real overlook and then we headed back, very slowly. We couldn't go more than a very short distance, before we'd stop so that I could rest and catch my breath. Even Hilary said, "What were we thinking?!" She says she wouldn't do the hike again. And we didn't go nearly the distance others were going!

It really was a wonderful experience and I'm really glad we did it. The colours in the crater are spectacular. The other-worldly-ness (is that a word?) creates such a unique experience. It was even warmer in the crater, but we wore our sweaters because we could feel the sun starting to burn us through the thin air.

Once we made it back to the car, we sat for a while and had an orange and water. After a suitable rest, we headed back down through the clouds one last time. Haleakala is a fabulous place to experience!

And that was our day.