Maui Day 3: The Road to Hana (Part 1)

Thursday morning, we woke up at 6am and threw on our hiking clothes, packed up some food, and headed out the door by 6:40.  We had heard great things about "The Road to Hana" and that's where we were headed!  It was going to be a long and adventurous day!  The road to Hana is about 35 miles of curvy road and LOTS of one lane bridges that you must yield at.  A song we heard said that there were "54 bridges to Hana Town!"  Our goal for the day was to travel the road, and stop off at some great hiking trails along the way to encounter some beautiful Maui views, waterfalls, pools, etc.  

When we got outside to walk to our jeep, it was raining, and we thought about doing this another day, but I'm sooo glad we stuck with the plans.

We drove with the cover on the jeep because of the rain for the 45 minute drive to Kahului (where the airport is).  Of course, we got to see a rainbow to start off the day!

Once we got to Kahului, we filled the jeep up with gas, grabbed a starbucks, and pulled the soft top off the jeep because the rain had stopped!  At about 7:45am we began our journey on the Hana Highway at Mile 0 and headed toward the city of Hana.

The beginning of our adventure!

Justin definitely was the driver for the day.

The roads were very, very curvy...

 ...with the ocean usually on one side, and the mountain on the other side.

Some cool trees along the way.

We used our guidebook to decide what hikes we wanted to go on.

We skipped the first few because they seemed very simple and kids could even make the hike.  That's not what Justin and I were interested in!  We wanted adventure and hikes that were even fairly difficult.  That's why we left the kids at home! Ha!

We really wanted to see our first waterfall, so we stopped just past the 10 mile marker and went on a 5 minute trail to see this waterfall, Lower Puohokamoa Falls.  It was beautiful, but now we were ready to see one close up!

There was a small turnout a half a mile past the 11 mile marker.  We took a short trail to Haipua'ena Falls.  It was only flowing lightly, but it made for a nice photo.  (It was great to have other Hana travelers swap picture-taking with us!)

In my guidebook, the author mentioned that if we wanted to spend time at our own private waterfall, we should stop just past mile 13.

The reason why it would be private is because who wants to boulder hop to get there??

WE DO!  It was so much fun!  We literally hopped from rock to rock for 20 minutes in one direction!

(ps...Justin carried his backpack full of all our belongings on every hike!  That way we wouldn't worry about a car break-in)

Well, when we got there, Punalau Falls was only a trickle, but it was super fun to get there!

It was a pretty tall waterfall :)

We pulled off the road just after mile 14 to capture the view!

It was neat to see where we had just driven along the Hana Highway.

At mile 17, we hiked down to Ching's Pond.  There was a nice pool where you could take a dip, but the water was very cold!  So we stayed dry.  Supposedly, the locals stand near the edge of the bridge, and DIVE about 25 ft right there in the pool where it is hopefully deep enough.

Justin and I climbed up there to see what the drop looked like.  I don't think either of us would dive down there in that tight spot!  (well, Justin might!)

Finally a small food stand!!

Halfway to Hana is a little food stand that is well, literally, halfway to Hana!

We were happy because we were already starving from the hiking, and wanted to save our food we had packed for dinner.  We bought some yummy, fresh, WARM banana bread and ate it as we drove to our next stop!

Just before mile marker 19, we stopped at the Wailua Valley Sate Wayside.  We found some stairs and climbed to the top to see the view.

When we turned toward the ocean, we saw a beautiful view of the village of Wailua.

When we turned toward the mountain, we saw the Ko'olau Gap and a very tall waterfall!

Justin took this picture with our big lens so it is super zoomed!

Love this!

Between miles 19 and 20, there is a beautiful waterfall (or 3 really!) that LOTS of people stop on the side of the road to see.  Its called Upper Waikani Falls or "Three Bears".  

Justin and I got our picture on the side of the road, but then felt adventurous and decided to hike down to it so we could get a closer look!  The trail wasn't too difficult except for the first step.  It was a huge drop down!  But we were careful and finished the hike all the way to the falls.

It was fun being down there right on the water with the falls splashing on us.  We could look up to the top where people were still taking pictures from the road.  We were probably in some of them!  Ha!

Ok, so we knew the Pua'a Ka'a State Park was coming up soon after mile 22, so we decided to stop there for a restroom break.    There was a pretty little area with some small waterfalls, but in our guidebook, we found that if we took an awkward trail that was extrememely muddy and slippery for about 10 minutes, we would find a waterway viaduct that we could walk across that would lead us to an unbelievable waterfall.   

We passed over one little viaduct, and only saw this:

So we kept on going, and found another viaduct that was much scarier to cross than the first one!  We thought just maybe we would find this great waterfall the guidebook had mentioned.

Here I am, crossing the tall viaduct (and I'm pretty scared!)

And we didn't find anything on the other side!  

We walked sooo long and still found nothing.  Oh well!

We did see some cool critters along the way :)

Back on the Hana Highway, we passed by this cave.  The guidebook said it was a lava tube that was only about 140 ft until you got to the other side where you would find a cool banyan tree and stream.

Hmmm...do I want to go in there?

It was pitch black.  We couldn't see anything!

But we thought we would give it a try.

Ok, so we get inside, and we have a flashlight, but it's not very big.  I can't see a thing, so I am freaking out.  I figured out that if I kept hitting the flash button on my camera, it would light up the cave.  But I kept doing it every two seconds, and it was blinding Justin and he kept yelling, "stop doing that!  I can't see when you do that!"  haha....so we turned around and left the cave.  It was hilarious and we couldn't stop laughing!  Oh well, I guess I'm not THAT adventurous!

 To be continued!....