I came to the conclusion today that we are well and truly spoiled. We drove the incredibly twisty highway to Hana today, a stretch of road on the north side of the island of Maui, Hawaii, best known for its many waterfalls. We saw a few, but none we were really willing to stop for. Once you've driven through Keystone Canyon on the way to Valdez and gawked at the waterfalls there, nothing else compares.
As a reminder, here's a photo from last spring of me in front of Horsetail Falls, one of at least a dozen in the canyon.
But I get ahead of myself. There was a bit of fun on today's adventure before we even reached the Hana Highway.
Just out of the cute little town of Pa'ia (we really need to go back one day to poke around in the shops), we stopped at the Ho'okipa Beach overlook to watch the surfers. I have never seen so many in one place - there had to have been at least a hundred, if not many more. The next photo is from the overlook, the one after is from water level at Ho'okipa Beach Park. (Click on the lower photo to enlarge it so you can really see all the surfers in it.)
Back on the road, we started winding our way towards Hana. This is definitely not a road for the weak of stomach. Barely two lanes wide and liberally sprinkled with one-lane bridges, the only thing that keeps it from being terrifying is that the vegetation is so thick you can't see that there's nothing but trees and vines to keep you from plunging thousands of feet down into the ocean. We were following along in our bible, the guidebook Maui Revealed, in which it seemed there were two or three sights for every mile of road. Unfortunately, the road markers are hard to catch and the windiness of the road made it hard to see what was coming up. There were a number of things, mostly waterfalls, that we wanted to hike off the road to find, but we kept missing the right spots.
We did manage to find the pullout for the Waikamoi Nature Trail. The trail itself is nothing special, a very muddy maze of tree roots, but there was supposed to be a nice waterfall about 1/3 mile past the end of the official trail. We stumbled and slipped our way up the main trail and followed a narrow track through the bamboo, but we never did find the falls. I think if we'd just gone a little farther we'd have found it, but a strong desire for lunch, not to mention tiring legs, turned us back. We did get some nice pictures, though.
Finally, we managed to see a couple of small waterfalls. The first, Hanawi Falls (I think), was a lovely little thing. Darn that midday light that is the bane of all photographers, though.
Next we stopped to look over the bridge straight down on Makapipi Falls. (Don't you just love these names?) Here you can see Rowan standing on the bridge over the falls.
Seriously, those were all we saw. The drive was nice, and Thane and I agreed it might be fun to stay in Hana on a future trip, but I certainly wouldn't go for the waterfalls. See, we're spoiled.
As far as Hana goes, I really can't tell you much about it. We spent half an hour or so poking around the black sand Hana Bay beach, and then headed back so we'd be home before it got too late. Pizza and beer at the Flatbread Company in Pa'ia (highly recommended), and we were all ready to be done for the day.
I think the road to Hana is one of those things that must be done many times with the intent of just finding one or two of the highlights each time. There's just no way to do it justice in one trip. Perhaps we'll wander out that way again before we leave.
