Or, the road to Hana, and then my safari jaunt around the island, wherein I wade through a carcass and maggots, take my rented Chevy Cobalt on a 5 mile gravel road, and find myself quite alone in the wilderness. You do not want to miss this installment!
Let’s begin at the beginning, shall we?
I left the condo at 7:30am with my trusty Maui Revealed guide, which I highly recommend. The jaunt began mildly enough, at around mile 6.6. Well, perhaps not so mildly. According to the guide, you can clamber up a path hidden in bamboo groves and thus see 4 waterfalls. Boy, talk about a thicket! I did see one of the falls, though I didn’t think it was worth the slippery muddy path right along a sheer drop onto some sharp looking rocks. Fortunately the bamboo made for very good handrails. But right by the path I spied some Hawaiian cows, and some incredibly colored trees:
At about 10.8 miles there is a turnout and a little path from which you can see the Lower Puohokamoa Falls. When I drove up, I saw several people shaking their heads and driving off. I soon found out why: there was a carcass in the turnout, almost completely cleaned out, but still stinky. I think it was a pig of some sort, judging by the skull. There was also a carpet of maggots from the carcass for about 5 yards down the path. So to get to the vantage point, you had to hop over the carcass and scrunch the maggots under your feet. Which, of course, I did, not being particularly squeamish – I know Willow will laugh at me right now, but as she well knows, I’m squeamish about some things, and strangely, not about others. Yes, I did make sure I didn’t drag any rotting flesh or maggots away with me, I may not be squeamish about dead things, but I’m well aware of the health hazards. Anyway, here’s what I was treated to in return
I was tempted to photograph the carcass, but it just wasn’t all that interesting, to be honest. I prolly should have gotten a video of the wriggling maggots, I mean, how often do you get to see that? Thankfully for you, I moved on. At this point it started to rain a lot, so I mostly drove from waterfall to waterfall taking pictures quickly and then ducking back into the car. It was, after all, the rain forest, I was sort of hoping it would rain a bit. This is my favorite, though by far not the prettiest. I call it “Ya think?”
This is Waikani Falls, and when it hasn’t been raining for a month, it’s quite pretty and genteel. Hard to believe, really. Some of the driving-along photos are on the Flickr set, which you can find here. I recommend doing a slideshow and choosing the full screen mode.
A bit later on I pulled into a turnout by a bridge, and discovered a little path to a very lovely pool, which had a warning sign about how there could be flash floods at any time.
Seeing as how it was raining rather heavily, I figured the flash flood was an actual possibility, so I didn’t linger. I’m less afraid for my life as I am to get my Nikon DSLR wet, you see. By the way, dad, thanks again for the camera, it is phenomenal.
As I drove, I caught glimpses of Honomanu Bay.
I managed, quite by accident, to find the turn-off to drive down there. Most of it was not paved, but very passable. By the way, many roads are not marked on Maui, so while Maui Revealed in helpful in telling you how far from each mile marker things are, really it’s a crapshoot. You have to be willing to see an unmarked road and say to yourself, gee, I wonder where that goes? And off you go. It’s hard to get lost, there are not that many roads.
I was able to get to the bay, and as I walked down the beach, I got a view of the valley into the bay. The pics of the beach are on the Flickr set, but here’s the valley. The ocean was behind me.
Back on the Hana Highway, by now around mile 24, and I came upon Hanawi Falls. What was interesting here was that on one side muddy water was flowing down, and on the other, clear water, and they joined right by the bridge.
Soon after that, I took a detour to take Nahiku Road (also, unmarked). The road is a couple of miles long, and descends to the ocean. The actual road ends by a school bus turn-around spot, next to this giant banyan tree.
The rest of the way, about ¼ of a mile, you walk. The road is closed because the bridge is out. This is why the bridge is out, and I swear it looks like something out of the Indiana Jones ride at Disneyland.
It’s quite sturdy for walking, though.
As I walked down to the ocean, I could hear a small waterfall to my right. Here’s what I saw when I peeked around a tree:
Pretty cool, huh?
I walked on. As you get to the end of the road, all of a sudden the ocean opens up in front of you and it’s breathtaking. The water was a color blue I’ve never seen before. I can only imagine what it must look like when the sun is shining.
It’s just beautiful. There are more pictures on Flickr, of course.
Next, it was time for the black sand beach, Wai’anapanapa. The black sand is pretty cool, but the lava formations all around the beach is spectacular. Lava is such a drama queen! Here are a couple of shots, so you get the idea.
For the last couple of shots I walked right up to the edge – no special effects, people, I perform my own stunts.
As if that wasn’t spectacular enough, next was the red sand beach, Kaihalulu. I almost passed on this because I wanted to get to the difficult part of the road before sundown, but I’m glad I didn’t. I wandered around for a while to find the path, till finally someone local came by and I followed them. The path to the beach is dicey, but it was dry so it was passable. Thankfully, I had my hiking shoes on. I certainly would not have stood on the edge of lava cliffs or clambered up and down narrow paths on flip-flops or even Keens. I must say those shoes were a brilliant purchase.
Speaking of which, it turns out that when I want to get a good picture, and I have firm footing, I’m not afraid of heights. I lost count how many times I stood on the edge of something with a sheer drop onto rocks. Anyway, enough jibber jabber. This is the red sand beach. Spectacular, isn’t it?
Finally, the last official site along this scenic route, the seven sacred pools, ‘Ohe’o Gulch. This is another one that takes you by surprise. Here you are, driving along, and suddenly you’re on a bridge and you almost drive off it from the shock of seeing something so gorgeous. I think there are 5 pools below the bridge and 2 above, but I can’t swear to it. You can see 4 in this picture, downstream from the bridge; the 5th one is all the way at the bottom, right by the ocean, out of camera range.
After this, the return trip began. I thought that if I kept going it would take less time than if I turned around and drove back. Plus, I would see something new rather than the same road again. So I continued. I don’t think it took much less time than turning around would have taken, but it was well worth it. I knew that up ahead about 4 miles was a 5-mile stretch of gravel road, and then another 7 or 8 miles of poorly paved road, and then another 20 miles or so of regular road.
So on I went. After Hana, the road becomes Highway 31. Hah. Let me dispossess you of any notion you might have that “highway” means anything beyond “you can drive this.” Here’s only one example of Hwy 31 on the southern side of the island (because 31 also runs on the West side of Maui, where it actually is a real highway).
Yup.
After the gravel and the bad paving and a bit more, the 31 turns into the 37, which eventually drops down to Kahului, but not before a good 25 miles of absolute wilderness. I mean, there’s that road there, but for most of the drive, that’s all there is. I kid you not. There is nothing out there. Nothing. Zip. Nada. A convoy of 4 cars passed me, zooming by too fast for me to keep up (besides, I wanted to stop occasionally to snap pictures), and then for the next 2 hours I saw 2 other cars. One was a convertible with tourists, like me, so I kinda followed them for a while. Mostly, I didn’t want to get stuck out there after sundown because there were absolutely no sources of light anywhere. It would have been pitch black out there. Which is mildly unsettling if your car is running, and probably much more so if something happens to the car. Anyway, I managed to get to the 37 by the time it got dark, which was desolate but there were other vehicles, and it was a normal road. Here are some shots from the 31.
And then I rounded a corner and stopped dead to take this in
Finally, I had to start hoofing it so that at least I would get to the nice paved road before being plunged into total and utter darkness. But most of the 31 I drove at 15-20 miles an hour, with frequent photo op stops, so it really took a long time.
The 31 on the south and then the 37 heading north basically coast the foot of the Haleakala crater. That side is not the driest of the island, but clearly had been experiencing less rain than the windward (northern) side of the island, or even less than the west side of the island, where I’ve been staying. After a while the 31 cuts through a lava desert. There is vegetation, obviously, but there’s no question that it’s a lava desert. As I said, lava is such a drama queen. In a number of places, bridges drove over bone-dry gullies. On the other side, all the waterfalls were gushing, but on this side it looked like it hadn’t rained in months.
Even so, the landscape is majestic and haunting. I kept expecting giants to walk down these gorges, or a massive earthquake to crush my little Cobalt like the insignificant bug that it was.
Well, the good news is I lived to tell the tale. As I zoomed (25mph) westward, I crested a hill, and
The very last time I stopped to take a picture, also because there would be no more light, was just as I crested the next hill a minute or so later, to see this
I didn’t get back until 8pm, tired but satisfied. I am happy to report that besides taking a million pictures, I also hiked a bunch, and my hip and back felt better for it today. Surprising, and thought-provoking. But that’s another post.
Anyway, I highly recommend checking out the Flickr set. I don’t often insist that people look at my pictures, but in this case, I insist. Choose the slideshow option and then click on the full screen mode on the bottom right. If you want photo titles and comments (not that many), click on Show Info top right.
