Just Along For The Ride

If you've been to Maui or know someone who has, you've no doubt heard about the Road to Hana. Despite how the name Road to Hana sounds, the objective of this road is not just to get to the small town of Hana. It is all about the journey and enjoying the beauty along the way.

When you learn that a nonstop commute would be 3 hours or less and a "tour" can take 12 hours, you realize it is probably the best way to get a taste of all that Hawaii has to offer. And we did. The Road to Hana is a curvy coastal road with views of cliffs, beaches, waterfalls and miles and miles of rain forest. It’s mostly a well-paved road, but you do need to keep your wits about you when you drive it because of the many sharp curves and one-lane bridges. That's one of the reasons we decided to go through a tour bus instead of renting a car and driving it ourselves.

The other reason is that it's also known as "The Divorce Highway." Why? Because although it's fabulous, it is also 52 miles of driving madness – with 617 hair-pin turns and 56 narrow, one-lane bridges (some over 100 years old).

Wouldn't YOU rather be just along for the ride?

The comfort cruiser (tour van seating 12) picked us up at 6:30 a.m. since it was going to take nearly an hour to get to the official "road" – plus they provided breakfast for us! Once we got on the road, we were hitting the hair-pin turns right away. See above how the van behind us looks like it's going in the other direction? I couldn't have handled driving and Jim couldn't have handled me sucking in my breath and making stress noises! I felt comfortable with Walter, our tour guide with a much longer Hawaiian name, at the wheel.

He gave us a ton of information and history, including that this bridge we were going over was more built more than a century ago. Concentrate on the beauty, Robyn.

Since there are dozens of places tourists could stop, a person may not get far before dark if they tried. Walter had some key points to stop and I took a lot of photos out the window. He stopped here to show us the Rainbow Eucalyptus trees because they are so unique.

These trees may look like they’ve been painted on, but these colors are all natural. The multi-colored streaks on its trunk comes from patches of outer bark that are shed annually at different times, showing the bright-green inner bark. This then darkens and matures to give blue, purple, orange and then maroon tones. Cool, huh?

We were probably an hour or two into the tour when we had a traffic delay. Apparently with the rain and rain and rain the weeks leading up to our arrival, there were some mud slides. So they needed to clear debris and be sure everything else is secure. (As secure as it could be.)

If you click on the picture and look closely, there are three guys up on the top of this "cliff." Uff da. Now do you appreciate your day job?

The delay did afford us (and the people in the 43 vehicles behind us) a chance to walk around a little and see a few views from a different angle. Got this coastline photo and just love how blue the water is, how white the waves are, both contrasting with the lush green trees.

Since our road trip circled the base of a volcano crater, a lot of the beaches had black, lava rock. Very different.

I don't recall the names and locations of all the waterfalls, but they were all pretty.

 Waterfall pretty .... and pretty high up. So glad we didn't drive and have to "look down" occasionally.

All the waterfalls were robust, for lack of a better word, due to all the recent rains. Just added to the beauty.

Bamboo... you can't stop it. You can only hope to contain it.

A poinsettia tree. I wish I could contain THAT.

Just outside of the town of Hana is Wai’ānapanapa State Park. It is ruggedly beautiful with a lava outcropping just offshore to a small, black sand beach. Have never seen anything like it!

You just expected your hands to be black if you touched the rocks or sand. But they weren't.

Walter did advise us we could look and touch the rocks -- but not take them. That would be bad luck. If you recall The Brady Bunch Hawaii episodes, it would be like taking the taboo tiki idol around! That's according to island legend. And we weren't going to press our luck.

A view of Black Sand Beach from up the hill.

We had a picnic lunch stop at a little garden and gift shop. The owner gave each of us ladies a sprig (or stock??) of ginger. It has no scent to it until you squeeze it, then your hand and the flower have this beautiful fragrance.

Just learning new things around every corner (or curve)!

Unfortunately during our lunch stop, it started to rain. Hard. I guess it rains every day around Hana. Glad we got some photos taken in the morning!

We had brought our swimsuits with because we were scheduled to stop and take a dip in the Pools of Oheo in Haleakalā National Park. These are most commonly known as the Seven Sacred Pools (even though there are 21) so we looked forwarded to getting a healing swim on. But it was raining and due to the recent rain and rain and rain, the pools were closed to swimming that day.

Not to be deterred, since we had a 30-minute stop, Jim and I hiked the very muddy and slippery path to try to catch a sacred view. Didn't get much since it was raining and some of the outlooks were fenced off, too. Maybe the rain was sacred??

Even if it wasn't raining, we were going to get wet at Wailua Falls, touted as Maui's most photographed waterfall. While we may have been at the point in the drive where another waterfall is about as novel as a tree branch, this one is impossible to pass up.

When we were there, is was crazy cascading – like super rushing cascading – the 80 feet down the side of a jungle wall. It was so loud and big, we could feel the water droplets from the road. You can tell by my hair, the wind was blowing precipitation our way, too. Pretty awesome, though.

I had no idea how many famous people are associated with Maui. Did you know Charles Lindbergh is buried there? Had no idea.

He had lived in Hana until his death and had told his wife he wanted to be buried there at the Kipahulu Point Light Station. Did not see a lighthouse in the rain, but the grave site was in a cemetery for Palapala church, a little old church founded in 1864.

As the light rain continued, Walter kept us moving along. He wasn't sure if we'd reach a point where there would be too much water over the road and we'd have to turn around. Not something you want to hear 8 hours into your trip!

I was trying not to look at the muddy road. This was paved actually but was considered the "full body massage" portion of the trip that chiropractors everywhere love, I am sure. Still, we made it through safely and got home to our hotel in about 11 hours.

But not before the cows came home. Yes, even in Hawaii, they occasionally have the Wisconsin version of a traffic jam. Maybe it's not so different after all.

Right.

Thanks for going along for the ride with us!