Road to Hana
On Saturday, we decided to drive the famous Road to Hana, which leads to tons of Maui landmarks. It was amazing, but if you've ever driven on the Pacific Coast Highway in California, you have a decent idea of how scary it can be. The Road to Hana winds through the mountainous rainforest, right on the edge of huge cliffs and drop-offs. At times, it was only one lane, so you'd have to crawl past other cars to get through. Oh, and it rains a lot. It was insane!
On our way, it was all fun and games, including spotting our wedding date.
You can drive the road yourself or choose to go with a tour. We decided to drive it by ourselves so that we could just stop and go as we pleased (plus it's radically less expensive). If you go, we recommend this tour CD bought at the Shell Station along the way (if you go to Maui, you'll know these directions aren't as vague as they seem :P). It told us everything we needed to know, plus it came with a map of the location and Hawaiian flower guide, along with a free DVD tour of the Hawaiian islands. So worth it for twenty bucks!
Aloha, McDonalds!
At first, it starts out like a regular road, so you feel safe. It's a lie.
Bamboo forest.
Our car. You have to love their license plates.
As we were driving, we came across this arboretum. It did charge an admission fee (the other locations along the road did not), but it was pretty beautiful inside. I wish we had longer to spend here and have a picnic.
You know how in children's books they draw trees like this and you think the artist is just being fake and art-y? Nope. They really exist. They're Rainbow Eucalyptus trees and they are awesome.
Standing in the rain to get a picture with the Jurassic Park rock.
Paperbark tree.
Waterfall along the road.
After driving along the road, we were dying to see the black sand beach.
Mongoose! They were everywhere.
There were a ton of caves at Waianapanapa, with tons of black lava rocks.
The water was SO rough on this side of the island.
Black sand! It gets its color from the volcano on island.
Ahhh! The water got me and it had a strong pull! I can't imagine swimming in this part of the ocean.
The lava tube.
Leaving Waianapanapa.
This part of the island had a ton of cattle ranches.
We almost drove right into this guy! He started to come right up to the car--guess he wanted to go home to West Maui with us!
Wailua Falls (Maui)