Most people do the drive to Hana in one day, which is about six hours of driving depending on how often you stop along the way to enjoy the beauty. We were so pleased with our decision to do it in two days so we didn't have to rush. (It also meant we were one of the only cars going in our direction most of the day so we didn't have to get stuck behind anyone.) When we woke up in the morning we got to enjoy sunrise from our cottage and have a relaxing cup of coffee on the lanai.
Our cottage was across the street from the access point to Venus Pool which even though it is Kapu (private/forbidden) the owner of our cottage told us was ok for us to visit. We thought a dip in the waterfall pool would be a great start to the day so we went on our first adventure of the day.
Unfortunately after cutting our way through the brush and fighting off mosquitoes, we found that the pool was all dried up.
So back we went to the cottage to shower up and continue our adventures.
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| Will read his book while I got ready. |
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| Will in front of our car and cottage. Such a beautiful landscape! |
We were about ten minutes from the cottage, headed toward Hana town, when I realized I forgot a few of our clothes hanging in the closet from the day before. Sigh. So we turned around and went back for our belongings. It turned out to be a good thing because on our way back toward Hana Will decided to take a turn off toward a beach down the way to see what was down there. It ended up being one of the most spectacular sights we saw! We stopped at a mini red sand beach along the ancient Haneo`o fishponds.
We looped back around to Koki Beach and to see `Alau Island, a bird sanctuary just off the coast.
As beautiful as the beach is, the water isn't for swimming. The currents are just too strong. The locals have even made signs to warn travelers who aren't familiar with Hawaiian water.
After Koki Beach we made our way to Hana. We stopped at the couple general stores but the other little gift shops weren't open yet. We knew we wanted to eat lunch at the Hana Ranch Restaurant, so we made one more stop nearby before lunchtime. Just a couple miles north of Hana is Wai`anapanapa State Wayside Park. Here there is a black sand beach, a lava cave, and of course more beautiful coastal views.
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| Lava cave! |
We sat at a picnic table here for a while and enjoyed the beauty this park had to offer. It was hard to leave! But we had to be on our way for lunch and to get to all the other spots along the road to Hana!
Somewhere along the route Will took this picture, but I'm not sure which location it's from . . .
The next must see point was Opuhano Point and Honolulunui Bay at Nahiku Landing. We had to take a road less traveled off of the Hana Highway about two and a half miles. We came to the end of the road where the bridge was out for cars, but we could still walk across it and down to the lookout. I'm so glad we took the extra journey to get down here. It was spectacular!
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| We said "Hello" to this fisherman who had already caught one fish to have for dinner. |
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| Big waves crashing! |
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| Looking toward Wailua. |
As we continued on our drive we came upon Upper Hanawai Falls. The Hanawai Stream creates many waterfalls in its nine-mile path to the ocean and this is one that can be seen right from the road.
A couple miles farther is another set of waterfalls. This one was the Upper Waikani Falls. Just before we arrived here the rain started coming down pretty heavily, but this ended up being a good thing because all of these waterfalls along the highway were flowing steadily!
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| Sometimes it's hard to find a good place to pull off the road, so we stopped here even though it definitely said not to! |
Another mile down the road was the Wailua Valley State Wayside Park. Here we walked up to an overlook where we could look down into Wailua Village toward the ocean, and facing Mauka (mountain side) we looked right into Ke`anae Valley, which is a lower portion of the Ko`olau Gap of Haleakala's crater.
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| Overlooking Hana Highway |
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| Looking in to Wailua Village |
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| Looking into Ke`anae Valley |
As we continued along we took another road off the Hana Highway to get to Ke`anae Peninsula. Back in 1946 this whole area was hit by a tsunami which completely washed over the peninsula. The area was devastated with only a church surviving.
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| Pauwalu Point and Moku Mana island |
The next few miles provided a few overlook points of the always breathtaking coastline.
We really would have liked to visit the Garden of Eden Botanical Arboretum, but it was already closed by the time we got to that area. Fortunately it isn't too far in along the North route to Hana, so one of the next times we're on Maui we could make the trip to visit. With the arboretum as the exception, we felt like we had a perfect amount of time to explore, enjoy, and relax along our journey to and from Hana.
As we came out on the North side we stopped to watch the surfers at Ho`okipa Beach. The waves were huge and some of the surfers were so little! Down at the beach there were probably about twenty turtles! We even got to see one leave the beach to go for a swim.
After watching the surfers for a while we were getting hungry, so we went into Pa`ia, a cute little artsy town, for some of the best woodfire pizza I've had in a long time! Before dinner, though, I went through a couple shops and Will had a beer on the lanai of Milagros. While he was there, there was a beautiful rainbow right above!
Then it was sadly time to get ready to go home. We went back to Kahului to gas up and clean out the car before we caught our flight. Even though it was sad to see our vacation come to an end, we still get to stay in Hawai`i, which most people don't get to do. #LuckyWeLiveHawai`i
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