Road to Hana

Today, we tackled the Road to Hana. Overall, I'm kind of disappointed in how it worked out.

We had a great first half of the day. We were up at about 6:00 a.m. (naturally... I am so not an early riser, but the time change is messing with me), and left at 7:00 a.m. We made several stops.

Our first was a little hike through a bamboo forest to a little waterfall. There were supposed to be a few other waterfalls to see but we had trouble finding the second one and decided to move on to the next thing. We had fun hiking through the bamboo, though, and the waterfall we saw was pretty.

Back on the road, we ran into (well, not literally) a wild peacock, which was really cool. We got a picture of him before he attacked. He didn't really attack us, but I have an irrational fear of birds so when he was approaching the car, I got a little freaked out. :) As we drove away, he was in the middle of the road and we were terrified a car was going to come around the corner and hit him.

Our next stop was at a little trail back to a beautiful waterfall and pool, called Upper Puohokamoa Falls. There were people jumping off the cliff and into the pool below. It looked really fun. I actually regret not doing it. Oh well... guess the good news is that I didn't hurt myself, eh?

We stopped at several scenic overlooks, which were all beautiful.

Around 10:30-11:00 a.m., we stopped in a little community/town called Ke'anae. The coastline was beautiful. Here, we found a little snack stand. We bought a small loaf of fresh banana bread, and also had our first taste of Hawaiian shave ice. It was excellent! At that point, we were really hot, so the shave ice hit the spot. We had a strawberry/mango/banana flavor combination... yum.

A little later, we stopped at a waterfall called Upper Waikani Falls, nicknamed "Three Bears" Falls. The overlook to the falls is up by the road, and you couldn't actually see it that well. Thanks to the Maui Revealed book, we knew about a trail leading down closer to the falls. A couple of girls watched us hike down the edge next to the bridge, and I heard one of them say, "You guys are CRAZY." It actually wasn't crazy at all. The first couple of steps were steep, but after that, it was an easy hike through a little bit of bamboo and some trees, over some river rocks, and we were there. The view was so much better down there, and we enjoyed the little hike down to the falls.

Look, this is what we hiked down to get to the falls!

Unfortunately, this was the last stop that I actually enjoyed. Shortly after getting back into the car, I started to feel really sick. We were already about 20+ miles into the winding roads, and it was taking its toll. I'm not usually prone to motion sickness, but these roads are ridiculous.

We fought on for a few more stops. We pulled off on Nahiku Road and drove down to a beach that had a view of the whole coastline (that we had just traveled). We were there when it started to rain (the weather didn't help with the sick feeling, either). Beautiful sights, but they were hard to enjoy with a spinning head.

We tried to go down an unpaved, dirt road to see Blue Pool, but when we got to the end, there were all of these "NO TRESPASSING" signs, and we didn't really feel welcome. There weren't any other cars parked there, so we decided to turn around.

Our last stop was Wai'anapanapa Park. There were spring-fed freshwater caves, and also a volcanic black sand beach.

The trail down to the caves

One of the caves

Black sand beach

We had grand plans to go beyond Hana (where the best sights are supposedly located), to the Red Sand Beach, and the Seven Sacred Pools, etc. We only made it into Hana before we decided to turn around and go back. I was DREADING the approximately 35 miles of winding roads to head back, and if I'm being honest, it was a horrible, horrible ride back. Torturous, even.

I'm disappointed that motion sickness got in the way of us accomplishing all of the things that we hoped to see... there are places I really wanted to visit that we couldn't. Booo. But, I keep trying to look at the bright side. We have seen some really beautiful things so far, and we will certainly see more before we leave. And we still have Kauai to visit, too!

It took us a little over two hours to get all the way back to our condo from Hana. I still felt really, really sick. I think part of it was the lack of food, too. All we had eaten was cereal before we left the condo in the morning, and then the banana bread and shave ice. Oh, and some almonds we brought with us. So yeah... not exactly nutritious.

When we were back, I jumped right in the shower and we got ready to go grab some dinner. We wanted something a little different than what we have eaten the last few days, so we chose an Italian place called Penne Pasta Cafe in Lahaina. It got a good review in Maui Revealed.


When we arrived, we were surprised to find that it was set up like a fast food place. We ordered at the front counter and paid, then went and sat down with an order number outside. A waitress brought our food out to us, but that was about it for service. Cheap meal, though... we both ate for around $30. I had a baked penne dish, and Michael had calamari with pasta (it looked NASTY). Michael didn't like his dish very much, but said it was OK. Our standards have been lowered a little bit since the meal the other night (haha). Not the best meal we've had, but not the worst, either. I liked mine, but it was a pretty standard baked pasta dish.


When we got back to the condo, we watched the sunset (it was kind of overcast, so not the best one we've seen so far). We also finally cut up the Hawaiian golden pineapple we bought the other day (delicious!), and popped open the bottle of champagne we bought on our first night here (we haven't had the energy to drink it before now). We're hanging out here relaxing, watching TV--and blogging, of course. :)



We don't have any big plans for tomorrow... we hope to sleep in a little later than we have been. During the day, we want to hit up several snorkeling spots, and then tomorrow night, we have the Old Lahaina Luau.

We're having a great time... I can't believe tomorrow is Friday already. But we've certainly been cramming in as much as possible without being crazy about it. There's really no possible way to see everything, so I guess we'll have to come back some day. :)