Road To Hana
One of my favorite parts of Maui
My sister cautioned that the Road to Hana
can be difficult to drive and if there is heavy weather high in
the mountains, dangerous. I did research about what to see
along the route and there was enough that I couldn't figure out
how to pack it into a day. I came up with a mixed plan -
first do a half day and drive the first half of the road to Hana
to see if we can put up with it. If we can tolerate the
twisting road, do a follow up full day drive all the way to Hana
to see more of the attractions.
Our first stop was Coconut Glens to see the twin falls. This
pay parking, but it's real parking. It's a short walk to a
trail and there are two falls with pools. We picked the
higher one (a bit longer walk) because we wanted less of a
crowd. Being our first attraction we spent a lot of time
swimming in the pool.
This was our first time breaking out the
waterproof cameras and the first time the kids have gone for a
swim in natural water since last summer. The water isn't as
warm as the ocean, but it's plenty warm compared to swimming in
Canadian freshwater. Bring good water shoes - I left my
"canyon" shoes in Vancouver and walked in barefoot and some of the
rocks are sharp or jam up.
This waterfall exists because of a
section of hard rock that looks like columnar basalt. I
suspect that this section of rock was slower to cool down and was
consequently harder that the rest of the rock around it.
This small cliff changed the course of the river to make the deep
pool we were swimming in. The hard rock also lead to steps
to make it easy to get out of the water and jump in.
In Vancouver, we would probably spend the
whole day at such a nice pool. In Hawaii, we had other
things to do. We got out of the pool, back to the
trail and then stopped by the farm stand to get a treat.
Maui Garden of Eden
Our next destination was the Maui Garden
of Eden. In Vancouver we visit the Van Dusen Gardens every
year so I thought this garden would be a good place to visit.
After the Garden of Eden, we turned back and drove to Paia for a
later lunch.
Second Day Trip
Waiʻānapanapa State Park
If you had to pick a single attraction on
the Road to Hana that is a "must see", it is Waiʻānapanapa State
Park. It is noteworthy for it's black sand beach and
Lava Tube but also for how busy it would get. They have put
in a reservation systems and we had a ticket for a visit from
10:30 until 12:30. We arrived a few minutes after the window
opened and walked down to the beach.
The rock formations here are quite interesting. The area is
all lava rock, but there are layers. The top layer is soft
and crubles, but the layer below is harder. The leads to
small islands and caves just off the coast.
Right off the beach is a small lava tube.
On the road back from the park, we spotted some farm stands.
I found a parking spot and took a look.
We drove a few miles further to Hana to
get lunch. Our plan was to stop at the Thai food truck, but
the truck was closed that day. We were already parked (the
other choice was huli-huli chicken at the Koki Beach Park) so we
all got something different at different trucks - Claira got a hot
dog, Nara got Taco's, I got a veggie sandwich and Helen found a
fish dish. The drink hut was by far the busiest and good
good reasons - there drinks were top notch.
Hana Lava Tube
When we were planning this trip, Nara
identified the Hana Lava Tube as here highest priority
attraction. The parking lot isn't huge so I could
imagine getting in on busy days could actually be pretty
hard. They recommend 45 minutes to walk to the end of the
tunnel and back. They have a nice map and gave us good
flashlights and we headed into the tunnel.
The best light is always going to be sunlight. The light
falling off from the entrance is fantastic.
We headed down the tunnel and I continued taking photos.
There are lots of great signs describing how the tunnel was formed
and details about the tunnel. I had my tripod so most of
these photos are long exposures using the flashlights for light.
About half way down is a skylight. I
really like the light from skylights because they can fill in
volumes. We didn't have a lot of time to take photos in the
cave, but I'm sure I could have spent much more time down here
making images.
After the cave, we drove the southern road back to the central
island.
Tags: Hawaii(18), lava tube(6), cave(5), waterfall(3), swimming(2), peafowl(2)
People: Claira(6), Nara(6), Helen(3), John(1)
From: John Harvey Photo > Blogs for 2024 to 2005 > Maui > Road To Hana
From: John Harvey Photo > Trips out of the Country > Maui > Road To Hana
Last Modified Saturday, January 28th, 2023 at 23:06:12 Edit
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