Hawaii - Maui - Day 11

Saturday August 25, 2007

We set out this morning to go through the “Road to Hana”. This road was beautiful just like the other north part of the island but was way easier and better marked all the way. I was reading some of the tour guide books and spotted that there was a CD available to take you through the “Road to Hana” so we bought one when we stopped for gas on our way out. It made the drive way better and it had some music on the CD too as there are no radio stations on the way to Hana. A good $15 investment I’d say.

We tried to stop at Twin Falls and did see some falls but it really wasn’t marked all that well so we had no idea how long we would have to walk to get there. Then we stopped at Waikamoi Road Trail. It was a short walk which showed some of the local trees and flowers through the rainforest on this side of the mountain. There was also a Keanae Arboretum that we stopped at further up along the road. There were several lookouts along the way and a few waterfalls to stop and see. The best part was the Waianapanapa State park which was showed us a cave (likely an old lava tube), a black sand beach with many black lava rocks and crashing waves. We did also stop at the general store in Hana to get a quick little bit to eat. We got as far as Wailua Falls (apparently one of the Maui’s most picturesque waterfalls) and turned back around. The road did apparently go all the way around the mountain but part of it was national park (we had forgotten our pass from the day before), there was a section of gravel road we were unsure of (which was violating the car rental contract) and I didn’t want to stress Jamie out anymore since the road was now one lane again like the day before ( I wouldn’t have wanted to drive through it that’s for sure). We found out that the same couple we had run into the day before did the road and it was way better than the other side of the island.



We headed out to the south side of the island after going all the way back from Hana. We did a 15 minute stop at Oneloa (Big) Beach. Very nice looking area and very good surf apparently. Wished we had more time to relax there but I had wanted to see Lahaina as well since we missed it the night before.











We drove all the way to the other side of the island from the Big Beach towards Lahaina. Some great views here too.


We got to Lahaina and just did some walking around town and a quick bit of shopping. We parked in front of this old town courthouse with this amazing tree. The tree is one that’s roots from the top of the tree and when they reach the ground they grow another branch. It was a massive tree and a plaque said that it was planted in the 1800’s. We saw the marina area and then did a walk down the main shopping street. We got Micah a shark’s tooth necklace (we had gotten Kendra a shell necklace before).

We tried to head out of their before sunset so Jamie didn’t have to drive back in the dark and we got back to the car and noticed someone just park behind our rental car. Jamie runs up thinking maybe he can’t get out, well it turned out her car was bumper to bumper with ours. The lady moves the car and Jamie takes a look. Apparently, there were two marks on the bumper. Jamie looks at the damage he marked before we rented the car and we (and the lady) were blessed that we had marked this location already so we didn’t have any hassles with the rental people. We got back to the ship around 7 and headed for dinner.

This night we had dinner with a father and son from Michigan. He was a doctor and both of them seemed well traveled. They said that we didn’t have an accent but we did notice theirs although I wouldn’t be able to pin point where they were from. It was quite funny how you can pick out the “folks” from southern US. They almost always say, “y’all” in their conversations. We headed straight back to our room as we had to pack up our bags before midnight.