We are up and out early today – as we know the Road to Hana takes all day, and we are actually driving all the way around the island for the first time. Getting on the road early ensures we’ll miss a lot of the tourist drivers which hampers your enjoyment – not to mention speed – of the road trip. We also want to start early so we can hit Costco and get gas. Which is the strategy to use, btw, there is no one at the pumps when we arrive a little after 7:00. Good news for next week when we are flying out and need to get gas there again. Early.
Gassed up and ready, off we go down the Hana highway, through Pa’ia, the cute little artsy town that they say is now getting awfully gentrified, then on past Ho’okipa where all the kite surfers go, and finally out into the fields below Makawao, before the real intense part of the Road to Hana begins.
It is an incredibly beautiful day – hardly a cloud in the sky, clear as can be. Haleakala is out and completely clear – but there is nowhere really to stop for a photo, so we just gaze at the volcano as we begin to circumvent the island.
We normally follow along the road with our guidebook – Maui Revealed. There is a current version in the condo (told you this place has EVERYTHING!) and a CD that we have with us. But this year, Ed has downloaded the GyPSy Guide app to his phone, so we have a real time guide as we move along the road. It’s a great little app that uses the GPS in the phone to launch into explanations of sights that coming up. The Guide voice gives us options and tells us the 5 must see things on the road, etc. Then he can tell if we’d turned off the road on one of his suggestions – and gives you kudos for doing so. It’s actually really fun, as well as really helpful (especially when he says “I give you options, but you’re in control, because I’m just an app.”)
So, we follow our guide, listening to interesting stories about the East Maui Irrigation company, the company that provides water for the sugar plantations, and all the irrigation ditches running along side the road. We can spot a couple of them as the app-guy points out. We also get stuck behind this guy….
how and why he’s got the tree limbs on his car, we’ll never know! What we do know is he can’t really see and it is a nerve wracking couple of minutes following him along these hairpin curves, until he finally pulls over at one of the food stands on the side of the road.
After the tree-car, we hit a stretch of road that has one lane closed for construction. Obviously there have been recent land and rock slides here because they’ve got the front loaders scraping off the road from all the rocks. There is also quite a few areas where the road has just fallen away into the ocean. Yikes. That’s a little creepy. We finally make it to the first big lookout over the Hana coastline and stop for a picture – the restrooms – the lookout is actually at the Kaumahina State Wayside.
It’s only about 5 miles more to get to our first stop, the Ke’anae arboretum,which is free, as opposed to the Garden of Eden a few miles before, which costs $15 each to enter. The arboretum is lovely, with a paved walk leading you through some beautiful foliage. We are all alone here, except for the workmen who drove their truck right down the narrow path. Gotta have lots of experience to do that!
We particularly like the rainbow eucalyptus trees. They are beautiful and don’t even look real with all the different colors of the bark.
This is a beautiful place to stretch our legs and breath in the cool, crisp fresh air. A nice break after driving for a few hours without stopping.
A few yards down the road is the turn off for the Ka’anae peninsula (which the app congratulates us for going down). We’ve been here before, but it is always a good stop. There is a large parking area and beautiful rugged coastline with lots of waves crashing against the black lava rock. It’s always a good place to just stand and gaze out at the fury that is the ocean on this side of the island.
There are restrooms here too, and they are usually less crowded, but we’re so early, that nothing is really crowded at all. There are a few houses here – they’ve all been rebuilt since the 1946 tsunami wiped out everything down here except the stone church. The best thing about this diversion, though, is Aunty Sandy’s roadside stand that sells banana bread and snacks. We broke down and bought a loaf for $6 – and it was well worth it. It was warm, right out of the oven and some of the best tasting we’ve ever had. If we’re going to be bad - this is the way to be bad!
Back on the Road to Hana, we pass waterfalls along the highway – since we are virtually all alone, we can slow down and take pictures…
…and get out at some of the more impressive falls (and the ones that have parking areas on the sides)….
Right before Hana, we reach Wai’anapanapa beach which is all black sand, but has these great fresh water caves which legend has it, sheltered a princess from her awful King husband. But the King came looking for her, saw her reflection in the water at the mouth of the cave, and killed her. Now, at certain times of the year, tiny red shrimp appear in the pool, turning the water red, which people say represents the blood of the princess. Great story! Getting to the caves, down a steep, but rock staired path, is actually pretty well worth it. It’s mysterious and mystical down here, and you can almost feel the princess’s spirit (almost because the people behind were so darn loud, talking at the top of their lungs and totally destroying the atmosphere – tourists. Honestly!).
After climbing out of the caves, we wander along the top of the cliff that leads down to the black sand beach and the lava arch at the far end of the bay area. It’s a lovely area – and if we weren’t intent on doing the entire road, we might just stop here for a bit longer – but we are on a mission and we must press on….
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