The Road to Hana

We had been enjoying all of the amenities of our condo for a couple of days. We went snorkeling, played tennis, and went out to eat at a fancy restaurant. Jacqueline and I even had a date day in Paia where it was pouring down rain, but we did get to see Woody Harrelson and Willie Nelson. We all agreed that we wanted to see the other side of the island, Hana, but we could not figure out how we were going to get there. Eventually we decided to just have a day trip out to Hana. So we got up nice and early and had a caravan trip out there. Our first stop was the Twin Falls Botanical Preserve.
There was a short trail here that should take us to some waterfalls. We did see a few waterfalls, but because it was raining and had been raining for a few days, we were not able to cross the river to see the bigger waterfalls. We were fine with that though, as the littler waterfalls were big enough on this day. We enjoyed the giant plants and the massive amount of greenery. We got back into the car and headed down the road. Our next stop was the Waikamoi Ridge Nature Trail. This led us through the forests and we were happy to have our raincoats as the rain pounded us on this hike.

We had a great trail that told us all about the trees we were seeing and the many plants also. Of course, after it was over, I could not remember any of it, but it was nice to have a good walk in the woods on a well maintained trail. We continued our drive stopping along the way to see the many massive waterfalls that fell along the road. The road was incredibly windy, so it was nice to have a stop here and there to keep the car sickness from cropping up. I just wondered how many more waterfalls were out in the wilds above the road that we slowly meandered our way to the other coast upon.

We finally made our way to the other side of the island and found the ocean again. We stopped here for lunch to enjoy the brief spell of nice weather. The coast here was impressive to watch all the big waves pound against the shoreline. We did a short walk out to where a blow hole shot water straight up into our area. This was a great place to enjoy the power of nature and have a bite to eat. We left the beach with a goal of getting back to the forests and finally to Hana. Hana is a fairly small community that also has a piece of Haleakala National Park in it. Laura wanted to talk the Park Service people there and we wanted to get out and see the park. After getting delayed at the basket making area, we were off to explore the short trails in the park.

Since we were on a limited time frame, there was not a lot that we could explore, but we had to check out the Pools of Oheo otherwise known as the Seven Sacred Pools. These were some more beautiful waterfalls into some fresh water pools. Though, this was not a day to take a dip in the pools, we still did not get sick of looking at massive waterfalls. The trail led us across the road and into the woods. The trail was extremely muddy and we looked just like the typical Hawaiian tourist hiking it in our flip-flops. I guess every National Park has its visitors that people shake their head at and we were now them hiking in our flip-flops.

The trail was great, though as every half a mile or so, we would jump off it and check out some massive waterfalls. The Banyan trees along the way were pretty interesting, too, to see trees where the branches became roots growing right into the ground. The trail climbed pretty steeply as Jacqueline, Paul, and I hiked it together. Eventually, the trail led us into a most interesting forest across a bridge, but at this point, it was time to say goodbye to Hana. We hustled back down the trail to begin the drive back. The advice that we had received was to continue the drive around the island on the dirt road.

With Tom driving the Crown Vic, we were slightly concerned that it would not be able to handle the dirt road, especially with all of the rain that we had been seeing. Fortunately, though the road was in excellent shape and other than the occasional car that we had to get off the road for, there were no issues with the road. It was awesome to see the Hawaiian coast in basically a pristine form as this side of the island had not seen the massive development that had occurred on the other side of the island. We enjoyed the drive, but did not have time to stop to check out any of the sights. Eventually, the road ran into the road we had taken up to Haleakala. It had been a great trip seeing the sights of Hana and everyone had done a great job sitting through the many hours in the car to see all the amazing sights of Maui's undeveloped natural side of the island.