Despite that auspicious beginning, the power went out as we were boiling water for tea, which made things a little awkward with the breakfast prep. But it came back on shortly thereafter and we were able to continue with our toast as planned.
Michael had suggested that we find a nice beach to lie out on today, but it's my birthday, and I wanted to have an adventure. So, today, we took the road to Hana --- 30 miles along the rugged east coast of Maui, peppered with 54 one-lane bridges. The plan was to do some hiking, bathe in some rock pools, and see some beautiful waterfalls. It's a trip that is definitely about the journey, and not about the destination.
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We packed sandwiches and a few snacks and hit the road around 8:15. Our guidebook had some great suggestions for places to stop along the way, and I'd picked out the ones that seemed most promising. In addition, we discovered that someone had left a Hana Highway self-guided tour CD from Boss Frog in our rental car's CD player. I was a little skeptical, and I wouldn't have paid money for it given that we already had the guidebook. But it was actually very informative about the route and its history, as well as the ecology of the east Maui rainforest and the local language, although the woman who was narrating the tour seemed to be trying a little too hard to pronounce the Hawaiian words accurately. Expanded my Hawaiian vocabulary by leaps and bounds, though.
In case you're wondering about the experience of the actual driving part of this drive, I must report it was more than a little awkward to try to listen to the CD narrate its recommended stops, keep an eye on the mile markers, and check the guidebook for its different set of recommended stops. Not to mention the fact that we were trying to agree on what to do next as well as enjoy the scenery without driving off the nearest cliff into the ocean. Plus, the mile markers along the side of the road did not seem to correspond to the actual road mileage as measured by our odometer. This is not a trip for the faint of heart. But it was awesome.
The Hana Highway officially starts in Pa'ia, so we'd essentially already driven the first section of it, which took us between Pa'ia and the Retreat. So we thought we'd have a good jump start on the day-trippers coming from farther east. But when we set off, there were quite a few cars on the road, and they quickly piled up into a bona fide traffic jam --- there was some paving work going on, and only one direction was getting by. I was a little worried that we were going to be stuck in this kind of bumper-to-bumper caravan all day, but things thinned out soon after the construction and the rest of the day was very peaceful and not at all crowded. Phew!
I intended to begin with a little hike at Waikamoi Trail (mile 9), but the parking area (that is, the tiny unpaved indentation off of the side of the winding, narrow road) was full when we got there. We skipped it and kept moving. It should be easy to get back there if we want to try it again sometime, given that the turnoff for the Retreat is at mile 3.
The next stop was more of a success: Haipua'ena Falls (mile 11.5), a quick hike through scrubby jungle off the side of the road.
Now this is what I'd come for. It was a picture-perfect swimming hole with a waterfall in the back, but I didn't do more than dip my toes. It was still overcast with a bit of a chill on the air, and damn that water was cold! Maybe later.
After pulling out, we made a few quick stops along the side of the road to snap photos...
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| view over taro fields at Ke'anae |
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| Wailua Peninsula |
...before making a legitimate stop at the Ke'anae Arboretum (mile 16.7). We parked on the side of the road outside the gate and walked in to see a huge variety of local and foreign trees and other plants. My favorite were the painted eucalyptus, whose bark peeled away in strips to reveal brilliant colors underneath:
The next few miles brought up a new waterfall around almost every bend, including Three Bears (mile 19.5)...
...and Hanawi (mile 24.1)...
...and Pua'a Ka'a (mile 22.5):
The guidebook recommended this as a swimming spot, and a few brave souls were taking that advice, but it was still just too cold to contemplate getting that wet and then sitting the car for the rest of the day. Maybe later.
Our next stop was the roadside stand at Nahiku (mile 28.8). For those of you picturing a highway rest area, you haven't got the feel for this trip yet:
The guidebook claimed that there was a smokehouse here that did smoked breadfruit, which both Michael and I were quite keen to try. But when we got there it was closed; apparently breadfruit was out of season. Sigh. But we did get some wonderful salty / smoky / sweet coconut candy from one of the stands and had a great chat with the woman who ran the operation. She told us that she has to keep all of her TV remotes in plastic bags because her hands are so saturated with coconut oil from her work that she would ruin them.
As we munched through our smoked coconut, we navigated to the next main stop at Wai'anapanapa State Park (mile 32). Here, we actually had to turn off the road to drive into the parking lot, under a dramatic canopy of trees:
There were two main attractions at Wai'anapanapa: the black sand beach and the lava tube. Never having been on a black sand beach before, I assumed that this would be a regular beach with regular sand that happened to be colored black. Guess I forgot that the reason the sand was black was because it was made of tiny volcanic rocks rather than ground-up seashells. This made it rather dramatic to look at, but not at all pleasant to walk on.
The nearby lava tube, though, was pretty cool. It was basically a cave made of hardened lava that lead into the ocean.
We made sure to wash out our flip-flops thoroughly before getting back to the car.
We reached Hana soon afterwards. Remember how I said that this trip was about the journey, not the destination? Hana is a complete anticlimax after the drama of the trip to get there. As far as I can tell, there's not much to see there, unless you're into random old churches. It was around noon at this point, so we skipped through the town and pulled into Hana Beach Park to have a quick picnic lunch.
On the way out of town, we made a quick stop at the Hasegawa General Store to see if we could find some fruit to supplement our lunch. It was indeed a general store, and they did seem to sell a bit of everything (lightbulbs, kitchenware, pasta, engine oil, sweatshirts, books...), but they were a bit light in the produce department. Luckily, we found a fruit stand just a bit down the road, and were able to buy some fresh mangoes and rambutans.
Once out of town, on the recommendation of both the guidebook and the CD, we turned off the main road to take a small loop road to one side, called Haneo'o (mile 50). Rather than going inland, this took us down along the water, allowing us to stop and have a stroll at the lovely Hamoa Beach.
The soft sand was very soothing after that lava tube.
From there, it was just a few more narrow and very windy miles to the southern entrance to Haleakala Park, the location of 'Ohe'o Gulch, sometimes called "the seven sacred pools." It should surprise no one to know that there are actually 24 pools, and none of them were ever sacred. The misnomer comes from a tourist ploy in the '70s.
Whatever they're called, though, they were awesome. I'd wanted to hike a bit to get to the upper pools, since I was worried about crowds, but Michael was worried about the time --- it was then 3:00, and we'd have to go back the way we came, which would be quite treacherous in the dark. So we struck out for the lower pools, which turned out to be the right move.
There were certainly other people around, but it didn't feel crowded. Heck, it didn't even feel touristy. One had to scramble quite a bit over the rocks to get to the pools, so everyone who was there was being very respectful. Plus, it was finally sunny and finally "later"! We tucked away our shoes and clothes, spread our towels over the rocks, and headed in.
What a great way to turn 30, and to wrap up a great day.
When we got back to the car, we turned around and headed back up the road to the Retreat. It's a shame that it's not actually possible to drive around the whole island, since that would have been the logical extension of our trip, but past the park there's a part that impassable for cars --- or at least labeled as such on the rental car agreement, and we didn't want to risk it.
There were fewer stops on the way back, of course, although we hit the General Store again to get some supplies for dinner, and the coconut candy stand in Nahiku for a drinking coconut and some more snackies. In addition to cutting the top off the coconut so we could drink the water, the woman cut it open when we were done so that we could scoop out and eat the tender, young coconut flesh. Best $3 I've spent in ages.
The trip back didn't take nearly as long, and was quite beautiful with the lowering sun shining through the trees and dappling the road with golden light. Back at our Temple, we showered, rinsed out our bathing suits, and made dinner (Gardein's mandarin "chicken" over rice noodles with bok choi). As if the day couldn't get any better, as we were relaxing in the sitting area, I spotted a gecko stuck to the glass of the main window:
The only sour note is that I'm still coughing, and more this evening than previously, but I will soldier on. Especially since tomorrow we're planning a relaxed beach day to counteract all of today's excitement.
As our Boss Frog CD would say, I'm pau (finished) for now --- see you in the morning.
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