Road to Hana

View from the road

Early in the morning, at around 6 am, my family set off on the road to Hana, on Maui.  Hana is on the other side of the island taking about 2 and a half hours to drive if you were to go straight through. However, it is an all day trip if one makes stops along the way. On the way, my mom played a CD that guided and explained about the different trees, waterfalls, flowers, beaches, bays, and hiking trails that we saw along the way. This road was very curvy and green with just a few towns along the way. We drove through this rainforest and at a few of the stops, we got caught in a downpour of rain. Maui has a spot that is the second wettest spot on earth coming after Kauai which is another island on Hawaii that my family visited last year. The CD guide told us that we would be crossing over 57 bridges along the way. 

Twin Falls

Our first stop along the road was a gorgeous waterfall called the Twin Falls.  It is called the Twin Falls because there are two mini waterfalls combining into one. This was a gorgeous hike through a jungle with exotic flowers and fruit trees.  We saw many banana trees, coconut trees, and papaya trees.  It was still cold as it was 7 am so we didn’t swim in this pool but we did in the next one.  The next waterfall we hiked down to was a pretty big one with a deep pool.  I was the bravest of all of us to jump into the frigid water first.  After I jumped in, my mom said that the last one in was a rotten egg and shortly after that, we were all in the water shivering.  But as we were coming out of the pool, rain started pouring like cats and dogs. It was something I have never seen.  But the rain paused and we soon started driving on the cliffs of the mountains.  It was a gorgeous site seeing the turquoise water splash against the white sand beach with green rainforest cliffs above.  

View from the road

Wading into a cold pool formed by a waterfall

 
Our next stop along the way was lava cave.  It was pitch black inside and very rocky making us take flash lights along.  This lava tube was formed approximately 960 years ago when lava sprewed up from under ground and flowed to the ocean. Lava flowed to the bottom and the top cooled forming a hard crust.  The lava continued to flow for about 2 years making it the 18th largest cave in the world.  This cave had pointy icicle looking things that were called stalactites and only grew one inch every thousand years.  When lava flowing through the cave touches the ceiling and then drops again, the lava makes the pointy shape. When it hardens, it forms stalactites. After the cave there was a maze made out of trees with red gigantic leaves.  It was a difficult maze because almost at every corner you would reach a dead end.   


 

Just made it out of the maze

After the lava cave, we drove to Hana a little town with gorgeous red sand and black sand beaches. At the beaches, we saw many mongooses that were skittering around.  When the early settlers arrived, there were many rats that were pests, and the Mongooses were brought to the island to eat the rats. The problem is that rats are nocturnal and mongoose are diurnal and the two never seemed to meet each other.  Soon the mongooses were eating birds and eggs and are now even bigger problem for the endangered animals. This is just the beginning of these once in a life time beaches and sites of Hana and the rest of them will be posted on my sister's blog, Come Somersault With Sarah. 

 Where do you enjoy going for a drive?