Mr. and Ms. Adams -

Maui: Road to Hana: Waianapanapa State Park

Written on June 19, 2013 by Ms. Adams in hawaii

If there was one location on the road to Hana that deserved its own separate post, it would have to be Wai’anapanapa State Park. Waianapanapa is home to Maui’s famous black sand beach. But really there’s so much more to explore here than just the beach. We pulled up to Waianapanapa around lunch time and decided to eat our packed lunches on the picnic tables in the middle of the park. I definitely recommend packing a lunch as there isn’t anything other than vending machine drinks here.

Once we were fully fueled, we headed out to explore. Our first stop was the rugged, low-cliff volcanic coastline. From here, you can see the juxtaposition of the lush, green jungle, the dark, rugged black basalt lava coastline, and the infinitely deep blue ocean.

One of the unique features of this side of the park is the natural stone arch you see off in the distance. This was likely created by a massive wave crashing into the rock and breaking apart its middle section.

We then hiked down the trail to the black sand beach that brought us to Waianapanapa in the first place.

The edge of the beach farthest from the water isn’t made of sand but rather these large black stones (make sure to wear your shoes). The closer you move to the water the more finely ground the stones become until eventually you reach what appears to be black sand.

The waves here were intensely strong, and the shore dipped off rather quickly. So instead of spending our time getting swept away in the water, we opted to take some more pictures.

Unlike the other colored beaches on the island which were created by cliff erosion, this is the only beach whose sand was created by lava flowing into the ocean and shattering on contact. The fragments of the lava then smashed up against one another and gradually over time were ground down into sand. These types of black beaches have a short life span, since they don’t have a way to regenerate the sand after the lava flow has stopped. It’s likely that this beach won’t exist 1,000 years from now. So you better get there fast.

Off to the right hand side of the beach was a small cave with a small opening. We ducked down and crawled inside to explore. All of a sudden we were in the middle of a cave with the ocean waves pounding on the other side. Luckily, there were some breaks in at the top of the cave so we were able to navigate around without a flashlight.

Beyond the beach, next to the parking lot, was a short but steep trail that led back into the anchialine pool caves. Wai’anapanapa means glistening water, which is supposed to represent the fresh water seen in these caves.

We followed the circular trail down the stone steps through a cutout in the thick forest. At the bottom of the trail, we were met with spring-fed cave pools.

The caves themselves are a part of a tragic Hawaiian legend. The Hawaiian princess, Popoalaea, fled to the caves to escape the cruel wrath of her husband, chief Kakae. When Kakae found her hiding inside of the caves, he smashed her head against the cave, killing her.

Now, every Spring, red shrimp appear in the cave pool’s, making the water turn red. The shrimp symbolize the princess’s blood that was shed here. While I don’t know if the legend is true, I can say that this place felt majestic and sacred. It’s a quite respite from the tourists hoards that you often find on the road to Hana. We spent most of our time here alone listening to the water slowly drip and the birds sing. Something about that moment was purely magical.

Many guidebooks suggest swimming and exploring inside of the caves. We didn’t have enough time but I’m certain it would have been an amazing adventure. Guess we’ll just have to come back again.

If that wasn’t enough, Waianapanapa also offers a trail to ancient burial grounds, a blowhole, and even camping. Sadly enough, we didn’t have time to explore the rest of its beautiful features. If I close my eyes, I can still see the black magic sand, the dark blue sea, and the lush green trees. I guess you can say that the magic of this place hasn’t left me.

Maui: Road to Hana

Written on June 18, 2013 by Ms. Adams in hawaii

By far the thing I was most excited to do in Maui was to drive the road to Hana. Not that Hana is a particularly fantastic place but the drive to get there is a once in a lifetime experience. The drive starts in Paia on the northern side of Maui and continues 68 miles east to Hana. The highway connecting these two cities cuts directly through some of Maui’s most lush tropical rainforest land, including waterfalls, cliffs, scenic overlooks, and generally just amazing views. In order to accommodate the roadside waterfalls, the road curves over 600 times.

Besides being incredibly windy, the road is always very, very narrow. Many sections start as a two lane highway and then quickly disappear into one lane, includes over 40 one lane moss covered concrete bridges. For skittish or timid drivers, this highway would prove to be a harrowing experience. Even though we had read many warnings about the difficulty of the driving the highway, we opted to drive it ourselves instead of going with a tour company. I trusted Mr. A enough (and he trusted himself enough) to get us there safely and we all really liked the flexibility of being able to stop when and how long we wanted too.

But we did heed the rest of the advice regarding the trip to Hana. We made sure to pass the airport by 9 am with a full tank of gas and our lunches packed (there aren’t a lot of places to stop to eat or fill up along the way). We also purchased and downloaded the Gypsy Guide for the Road to Hana, which I hands down recommend if you ever decide to go to Hana. The guide used GPS to figure out where we were on the Road to Hana. As we approached the different landmarks and stops, the guide would provide us a little background and also tell us where to stop. This was an absolute necessity as the landmarks are not marked and are sometimes very difficult to see from the road (especially when navigating around hairpin turns that lead into one lane bridges). On top of the Gypsy Guide, I also used my handy Maui Revealed book to write out an itinerary the night prior to our departure. There are so many different places to stop along the road that you could eat up an entire day and never make it to Hana. I wrote out ten specific must stop locations, anything else that our Gypsy Guide mentioned we basically tried to skip (due to the time constraints) unless it sounded unbelievable. I wouldn’t have been able to navigate without these two things so I highly recommend them.

Our first stop was a little anticlimactic but very necessary. Kaumahina State Wayside Park had the first public restrooms that we could use for over 60 miles. We snapped a quick picture, used the loo, and packed back into the car. Even if you are tempted to skip this stop, I highly recommend it because you won’t see another bathroom for a while (and besides at this point you will want to stretch your legs after being crammed in the car for two hours).

The next stop was the Keanae Peninsula, which actually was a few turns off of the main highway (once again proving that a GPS is totally necessary for this adventure). This area was decimated by a massive tsunami in 1946 that wiped out the entire village except for the old stone church. The tsunami originated in Alaska and reached 100 feet before crashing into Maui.

The beach at Keanae is formed from newer lava that sticks straight out of the ground. The waves crash incredibly hard against the rocks causing water to surge up into the air.

While this is a pretty interesting stop (with restrooms), make sure you don’t spend much time here, you’ve got plenty more adventure ahead of you and not much time. If there was one mistake we made, it was spending too much time at our first stops, causing the last stops to be really rushed.

Before getting to the next town, we stopped at our first waterfall for the day, Ching’s Pond. While this was probably the least impressive waterfall we saw all day, it did give us some momentum to keep on driving. At this point, we had been driving for several hours and we still hadn’t seen a waterfall. This gave us the perfect boost. The trail to access the pond is very steep and rough. Make sure you have your water shoes on for this one.

We also saw several people jumping from the bridge into the pond. I would never ever recommend doing this. The room for error is nearly zero and if you hurt yourself there’s no hospital close by. If you are pressed for time, feel free to skip this stop. The Maui Revealed book made this pond seem like something spectacular but I would venture to say that many of the other sites that lie ahead are much more deserving of your time.

After Chings, we finally got to see our first big waterfall, Upper Waikani Falls (also called Three Bears Falls).

Just on the right side of the one lane bridge was this beautiful waterfall. While I’ve seen waterfalls in my lifetime, I’ve never seen a waterfall quite like this.

The waterfalls was towering high above us, more than I can capture with these pictures, and then it dropped dramatically below us into a pool. On the far side of the bridge, a path had been created to go down to the bottom pools of the waterfall. The first step to the hike was so steep and so dangerous that I couldn’t justify climbing down to the pond (think a large slippery rock with a very narrow slice to slide down). Like Ching’s Pond, there were plenty of tourists tempting fate and climbing into the abyss. I just couldn’t do it. I was more content to take pictures from the bridge anyway :0)

Tomorrow, I’ll continue our road to Hana story with arguably the coolest part of the whole trip, the real black sand beach. It was truly my favorite thing of the whole trip.