Saturday morning we headed to Kahalui to visit the swap meet there in search of some souvenirs. They had lots of options.
I got some t-shirts and necklaces for my kiddos. (Ryan hasn't stopped wearing the shark tooth necklace I got him.) We enjoyed some shave ice and shortly thereafter we ducked out--it was getting pretty hot (and humid).
We headed out on our big adventure for the day: the road to Hana. This road is famous for having lots of one-lane bridges, tight curves, and lots of waterfalls along the way. After our drive on the west side of the island a couple days before, the narrow, windy road was a piece of cake. And very pretty. We downloaded an app that used our GPS position to give commentary and tell us good places to stop along the way. Unfortunately the phone died partway through, but luckily we had already found the hard-to-find places, and the remaining places that we wanted to visit were well-marked and easy to find.
We stopped at a little picnic area just past Twin Falls called Waikamoi Ridge Trail.We did the loop instead of the other trail and we think we probably missed a really pretty lookout, but it was still a pretty (though short) hike. The trees were enormous.
Enormous trees need enormous roots.
Here is one lookout. It's all so green it's hard to judge distance. The green behind Savannah and Mom is way far down in a valley.
Our view from the picnic area where we ate lunch:
We stopped at a wayside park that had a view of the Honomanu Bay (I think).
A bit farther we stopped at the villiage of Ke'anae. It's just a little villiage with a few houses and some water access. Savannah did some exploring.
The leaves were almost as big as me.
Down by the beach there was lots of lava rock and lots of tide pools.
We found several dead crabs that had been dropped on the rocks by birds who then proceeded to eat them.
There was what we think was a sea cucumber in one of the tide pools.
Kind of cool.
This is a famous church in the villiage that was the only surviving building when a tsunami swept through it years ago.
There was a cemetery in the church yard.
We got back on the road and stopped at Three Bears falls. There was a cliff wall on one side of the road dripping water from the roots of the plants as the soil has eroded from around them. We had a lovely shower that felt so good in the heat and humidity.
Here you see the roots:
Three Bears Falls is so named because there are 3 waterfalls side-by-side. You can see 2 in this picture. The third is in the shadow and is smaller than the others, but if you look closely you can see it.
This is the view from where we parked for the 3 Bears Falls. You can see the Ke'anae church down near the shore line if you look closely.
The road was enclosed on both sides by foliage for the most part. Where we were staying in Kihei was the more desert side of the island. The road to Hana was definitely the jungle side of the island.
For much of the ride it felt like we were driving through a tunnel of trees. And some of the trees were just huge.
We stopped at Pua'a Kaa Wayside Park and went to see the waterfall.
On the way we saw a family of cats (cats roam the island wild and free), along with a couple of ferrets, as well. They were eagerly awaiting snacks from the tourists.
Savannah and I got in to cool off and ventured across the slippery rocks to get closer to the falls.
We made it pretty close, then realized that swimming back (in the freezing water) was way easier than walking over slippery rocks like we had done to get there.
Our last stop was technically within the town limits of Hana, but we didn't really see anything of Hana except maybe a house or two. We went to the black sand beach at Wai'anapanapa State Park. The road coming in was lined with trees.
There are apparently lots of sea caves there carved out of the lava rock by erosion. You can see an arch in the rock behind us reaching out into the ocean.
Down by the black sand beach there was a cave that led right to the water. The rocks were worn smooth, but still the size of shelled pecans, maybe a little bigger.
The sand on the beach was really interesting. The sand was pretty coarse, nothing like the soft beach sand that had been at the beach we visited the day before. More like playground sand. And up higher on the beach farther from the water it was even more coarse. You could see kind of levels of coarseness. There was playground sand coarseness, then a bit more coarse, then small pebbles, then larger smooth stones. It was really cool.
And the water was just perfect for body boarding. Savannah and I used the skills we had learned boogie boarding the day before to ride the waves in on nothing but ourselves. It was so much fun.
We didn't want to drive the narrow, windy road that was one lane at many sections in the dark, so we had to pull ourselves away from the fun. The sun was not at a good place for our drive back so Savannah (our driver) was blinded by the stark contrast between the bright sun and the deep shadows many times, but she managed to get us all back in one piece and grateful it was her driving and not us.
After a shower we picked up a pizza and watched an episode of Sherlock before drifting off into an exhausted sleep from a full, fun day.
