25 February 2014
Brace yourselves - you're in for a long read!
Well, the guidebooks will tell you it's the Heavenly Road to Hana, but honestly? They're right when they also tell you Hana isn't much. This is one time the journey truly
is the destination. We read we should start no later than 8 am to avoid crowds. Check (another really early morning, as the start of this road is at least 30 minutes from Kihei). We read we should take our time, but the round trip journey was an easy day. Check - not. We've long since figured out we don't travel the way most folks do. We much prefer to see one or two things well than race through a bunch of things to get them off our list. But even knowing that didn't prepare us for this jaunt. It took us about 6 hours to get to Hana - not the 3-4 most books promised - and that wasn't the end of the road! Joe ran into someone who took the same drive and absolutely could not see what the big deal was. (I paraphrase) "We got there in about two and a half hours and it's nothing." Joe asked what he'd thought of all the waterfalls. "What waterfalls?" Clearly, this guy never took his eyes off the road and his only goal was to be done as soon as possible. Boy, did he miss a lot.
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| I bet some of this has never felt footsteps. |
We started out with a car load of stuff. There's not much in the way of places to stop on this road, and we wanted to be prepared. We had a cooler, swimsuits, towels, changes of clothes, hats, sunscreen, bug repellent, cameras, we bought lunch to pack along - you might think we thought of everything. You'd be wrong. We forgot our raincoats. And we went through a rain forest. Surprise! It rained. And it rained - for four hours straight. I'm not sure that's typical. Kihei is on the dry side of things, but Hana's not. Of course, that's why it's so lush. We heard most rain doesn't last very long, but we ended up in the exception. I hate traveling in wet clothes, and I must admit to being somewhat cranky until I dried off. But it all ended well.
First of all, some background.
From Wikipedia (the airport is inKahului, and it was about a 20 minute drive to there):
Although Hāna is only about 52 miles from Kahului, it takes about 2.5 hours to drive when no stops are made as the highway is very winding and narrow and passes over 59 bridges, 46 of which are only one lane wide. There are approximately 620 curves along Route 360 from just east of Kahului to Hāna.
Let me say that this dry recitation of curves and bridges doesn't begin to tell you what it's really like. This map does. All those curves get you back to the narrowest part of a valley, usually with a stream.
The bridges are generally all of 4 or 5 car lengths long, so when I say narrowest, I mean it! Sometimes the curves are so tight you can't begin to see if anyone's coming the other way, especially once you're past Hana. Some places have signs telling you to honk to alert others you're there! And this winding goes on for miles and miles, so you can guess that it's all pretty slow. That's ok as it means you get to look around - except for the driver! So we stopped where we could. I had my trusty accupuncture beads in and they worked nearly all day. Kendra was OK most of the day, but used my accupressure bands as we wound our way home - more on that later.
Since we were
on the road, rather than
above it, we obviously didn't get a bird's eye view. But others have, and this gives you an even better idea of the terrain through which we drove. It doesn't show the valleys, but you get the idea.
And there aren't any guard rails...
Our first stop was Pa'ia to get lunch. We went to one of the few open places and got what we needed. The store also sold bug repellent. Now we'd hardly seen a bug to this point, but we'd been on the dry side. I figured the wet side would be aswarm with mosquitos. I figured wrong - we never saw even one, so that was money down the drain. At least it wasn't much. The store also sold CDs narrating the road, telling you where you were and when to stop. Unlike most other states, Hawaii has laws forbidding the erection of much signage, so nothing along the road is labeled. If you want to see ABC falls, there's no sign pointing towards them. The only navigational aid is the mile markers. So everything relies on those. James had downloaded an audio tour for a fraction of the CD price so we used that instead. It worked really well - for a while. Since the area is so remote, the reception wasn't very good and just drained his battery (he bought a car charger in Hana). It was also tied via GPS to your position, so you can't listen to it unless you're at the appropriate spot! The tour also told us when
not to stop - either something was further from the road than we had time for, or it was overrated and overcrowded or if it was actually on private property. I have to say, when it told us a place was worth seeing, we ended up agreeing!
The first part of the drive took us through pretty country, but nothing all that amazing. We did pull over to watch the surfers. There's a place we didn't get to nicknamed Jaws - because the waves can chew you up. When the surf's up - as it often is in winter - the waves can reach 60 feet. That's not a typo. Needless to say, it's not the place to learn to surf! The left picture shows one of the many showers through which we passed before hitting steady rain. The shot below shows the surfers just hanging out, apparently waiting for better waves. Or maybe they were just hanging out!
Soon after this, we began to hit curves. And waterfalls. And impossibly beautiful vistas. We stopped at Haipua'ena Falls and got out to hike up the stream bed to see the upper falls. An interesting side note: waterfalls can vary tremendously from one day to the next. Rainfall certainly plays a role - flash floods aren't uncommon - but so does irrigation! Plantations on the higher elevations sometimes divert nearly all the water into the fields, and other times release it, so you never know what you're going to see. Fortunately for us, this stream was low enough that we could easily hike up it (well, more or less - it wasn't exactly a smooth path, but certainly not impassable). And Kendra got to do one of the things on her Hawaii list - she got to stand under a waterfall! The water was surprisingly cold! Joe and I didn't swim here - we'd left our suits in the car.
Just as we got back to the car, the rain really started. And then it didn't let up for hours. We even ended up eating lunch in the car, pulled off to the side in one of the few spots wide enough to do so. That wasn't all bad, as just before we'd gotten caught in a line of very slow-moving cars. Stopping allowed that block to get way ahead of us and we had clear sailing after that. It was actually hard to get good shots along the Highway. There was certainly no shortage of fantastic scenery, but it proved nearly impossible to pull over and take pictures - the road is just too narrow and curvy. We did manage a few - including the two below that show the terrain fairly well. Unfortunately, the rain/clouds made many of our shots rather too dark to show off what we really saw. The road just goes on and on and on - you can hardly believe how long it takes to get anywhere! But so, so worth it.
Our next major stop was Kahanu Garden, a tropical botanical garden that showcases many of the Hawaiian plants (both native and those brought by the ancient Polynesian explorers) and talks about their uses. It's also home to Pi'ilanihale Heiau, a huge ancient temple built of lava rock. Unfortunately, you can't get all that close to it, and certainly can't get to the top, so there isn't much to see but a very large wall. I'm guessing you
could actually climb it, but it's sacred ground, so one just observes. The builders constructed a giant retaining wall, filled it in with stones and topped it with a 450' by 320' platform. When I said huge, I meant huge! It dates to about 1200 A.D. and some stones came from about 7 miles away. It was built by King Pi'ilani and his heirs. He also gets credit for building a ten foot wide road that circumnavigated the island! Needless to say, it was quite the undertaking. No one actually knows how it was used - it may have been religious, it may be
been for housing, and it may have been both. I didn't get to read the guidebook while we were walking - it was just too darn wet. Even with keeping it sheltered, the poor guide has clearly been quite damp! If it were a library book, I'd charge the last user and then delete it! The park has umbrellas available for use. We started out without rain - but took the umbrellas anyway. Good thing. It was pouring by the time we were done. At least it wasn't cold? The last part of the self-guided tour takes you through a stand of coconut trees, with a sign warning you not to stand under them because of falling coconuts! But the warning is warranted - we saw them all over the place and they're huge right off the tree! The coconuts you see in the store have had the
outer shell removed - these were at least head-sized. Joe got this amazing shot of a spider web - so incredible in the rain. I never even noticed it. We reluctantly gave back the umbrellas, and contintued on to Wai'anapanapa State Park, home to a rare black sand (let's call it what it is - it's small rocks, not really sand) beach. But not a beach for swimming. To call this shoreline dangerous is to utter quite the understatement. It's full of incredibly sharp rocks (you ain't seen sharp rocks until you've seen volcanic rocks), big waves and unpredictable currents. Kendra and James took a quick dip, but didn't venture far - unlike these idiots (in the distance in the picture below) who jumped and dove into these waters. There's a tiny lava tube here - the tunnel left behind after lava made its way to the ocean. And there are blowholes. The marked one didn't have anything going on - waves coming in the wrong way - but some others did. You'd see the wave hit shore, and then, a few seconds later, water would spurt up out of the holes. We didn't linger too long as - you guessed it - it was still raining, rather heavily at this point.
Finally, about six hours after we began, we actually
got to Hana. And the books are right - it's not much of a town. We kept going. Believe it or not, the road got even narrower (see the shot below). But without any trouble, we got to Ohe'o Gulch (often called the Seven Sacred Pools, but that's a misnomer. There are way more than 7 and they're not any more sacred than any other water in Hawaii - where pretty much all nature is sacred). This time Joe and I got into our swimsuits and headed across one of the pools. Not quite as fun as it was for J and K, I don't think, as it was more crowded, but still a lovely experience. Thank goodness it had finely stopped raining and it was just beautiful. I read that there are times the rangers close the pools. Sometimes the water rages so fast it can sweep you out to sea - and sharks lurk at the mouth of the river. But it wasn't much of a flow whilst we were there, so it was
all good. We spotted these crabs on a rock at the river's mouth - probably would have made a tasty meal!
By now it was close to four, and Joe wanted to head back - in a big hurry. We had all those curves to navigate again, and the road mostly hugs the east coast of Maui - the side to get dark first. He REALLY didn't want to be driving the worst of the road in the dark! Fortunately, he got behind a couple of islanders. We could tell by the speed with which they drove their trucks - clearly they knew the road. Joe figured if they could take the curves at those
speeds, he was safe to follow right along. And he was right. We made some rapid progress for quite a few miles. I forget what exactly caused us to lose them - we might have stopped for some drinks and snacks, or it might have been the sight of some of the waterfalls we hadn't stopped to see in the heavy rain on the way out now clearly visible in the late afternoon light. We made a few very brief stops for photos and just kept going. Joe managed to make it past the "worst" of the curves before it got really dark. Kendra and I were OK for much of it, but did begin to feel queasy after 90 minutes or so of fast cornering - Kendra in particular. I pulled out my sea bands. She put them on and reported feeling significantly better within about 10 minutes. Was it in her head? Her stomach? Placebo effect? Don't know and don't care. She felt better.
We had thought to have dinner in Pa'ia, but didn't see anything all that appealing as we drove its one main street, so just went back to Kihei. I'd read about a good Indian restaurant, and the reviews were right. It was so odd to walk in and still be in fresh air - all the windows were wide open to the outside, without even any screens. It would have been a gorgeous view had there been any daylight!
We resolved the next day would be a whole lot more leisurely. We'd thought about going to the top of Haleakala, at nearly 10,000 feet elevation, but decided against it. Just getting there would entail another 2.5 hour drive - one way! - and Joe just didn't feel up to it. Who could blame him? And anyway, what's a trip to Hawaii without going to the beach?
Some random shots of the day to finish up this incredibly long entry!
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| Ohe'o Gulch |
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| One of the many gorgeous falls we passed. |
On our way to Iao, we'd passed the entrance to Kepaniwai Park, so we decided to go back. What a lovely choice! It's a series of gardens, each showcasing something about a different ethnic group that emigrated to Hawaii at some point in time - Korea, Japan, China, Portugese, American (missionaries came long before Hawaii was a state) and more. It sure was odd to see a New England style house plunked down on Maui, but I guess they built what they knew (NOT getting into any discussion of what happened
