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Today’s Hawaiian adventure was set in Maui. A car (well, van) load of us set off to explore the Road to Hana. Again, I was the driver.
The Road to Hana is 42 miles long and is literally carved into the North-Eastern side of the island. Friends who had been to Maui before recommended this trip and I’d read a lot about it. The Road to Hana has been called the Road to Heaven. The drive was meant to be both beautiful and challenging - 50 one lane bridges, cliffs crashing down to the sea, countless hairpin turns - we were up for it!
I’d managed to borrow a copy of an audio guide for the Road to Hana. It was quite good - you timed it with different spots and mile markers and it provided commentary and anecdotes for the different things we passed along the way. Early in the audio tour, they described the Road to Hana as like driving through a postcard. They were right.
First we stopped in the town of Paia. It’s downtown was really cute with little shops and restaurants and cafes. It would have been nice to have had more time
there (a frequent thought throughout the entire day). We grabbed picnic lunches from a little shop in an attempt to save time later. From there the Road to Hana officially begins.
Next we went to Twin Falls. There was a sort of little park where we left the car. Nice plants and flowers everywhere. Then it was about a 20 minute hike on an easy path that cut through the forest. We saw two different sets of falls on the walk. You could swim in them, which was really tempting, but we were hoping to be able to swim at Oheo Gulch at the far end of the highway, so we continued on.
A few miles past Twin Falls we reached the intense driving I’d heard about. The next 30 miles were nothing but curves - small tight narrow fast curves. The only thing breaking up the curves were bridges so narrow they were barely one lane! It was crazy to drive but it was incredible to see. The landscape was all jungle everywhere: lush trees, vines hanging down to the ground, forests of bamboo, bright vibrant flowers growing everywhere. Then around every sharp crazy curve was another
stunning view. Waterfalls, mountains, cliffs, the ocean. We stopped at many different lookouts along the way, everyone had their cameras stuck out the windows snapping pictures (not me of course, I was focused on the driving!).
The next big stop we made was at the Keanae Peninsula. We turned off the highway and took another narrow curving sloped road down to the sea level. At the end, we stopped and found an incredibly beautiful piece of paradise. Hardened black rock from some long-ago lava flow lined the edge of the earth. Huge white waves crashed against the rocks. Tall green trees lined the coast and blew in the wind whipping in from the ocean. The sun was beating down on us. To us, it seemed like we’d found the quintessential vision of Hawaii. We spent a long time climbing over the rocks, getting closer to the water but not daring to get too close - we’d read that the waves there are unpredictable as well as strong. We took so many pictures of everything we could see - and of each other, like we needed proof that we’d been somewhere so beautiful.
From Keanae, we did the rest
of the journey to the village of Hana. The drive is called The Road to Hana, but the adventure is really about the journey there, not the village itself. But we still checked it out. The village is pretty and quaint but there really is not much to see or do there. A couple shops and that’s about it. So we just sat in the sunshine for a little bit.
I’d really wanted to get all the way to the end of the road - there’s still another 10 miles beyond the village of Hana and at the end is Oheo Gulch, a series of waterfalls falling into pools you can swim in. But we just didn’t have enough time. So we had to begin backtracking.
We made one more stop, at a park just outside of Hana. Waianapanapa is a recreational area that offers camping and gorgeous scenery. We looked down onto a pebbly black beach and surf pounding against black rocks. Beautiful.
Then we made the long winding challenging drive back. Before we’d even left Kuhului, where the ship docks, we’d seen t-shirts on sale that say things like “I Survived the Road to Hana”
and now we understood why. Unfortunately, poor Mary, one of the girls in our group, her stomach just couldn’t handle all the ups and downs and twists and turns in the road. We had to pull over a few times on the way back.
But I loved it. I loved the challenge of the drive itself. And I don’t think you could ever get tired of discovering another beautiful view around every turn.
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Sarah Willett
Sounds like the windy roads of Honduras. Except my drive is not a pretty postcard at each turn! Beautiful pics Netter.