Hawaii 3 - Road to Hana

 

Road to Hana!

Adam, Dani, and sage stayed home to deal with the covid, which seems to be getting better, but not 5 hours in a car better. My parents and myself left around 7am to drive out to Hana, along a road famous for it's turns and attractions.

Our first stop was Twin falls. A natural wonder belonging to the people that now has a parking lot attendant demanding $10 for the privilege, it's pretty great if you can get past that insult. We saw the top of the first falls, then walked out to the second set of falls (which would be twinned, were the water a bit higher). We decided to skip the third set of falls - which was a further 30 minutes up the trail, and we doubled back to see the bottom of the first falls. Good stop, with some cool nature and bamboo (so much bigger than the stuff we can grow in MD, and it made great noise). At the base it started to sprinkle, but after a couple minutes waiting under trees the rain wrapped up and we made a successful break for the car. 3/5 stars. Would be 4/5 for sure but they made it illegal to park in the pull-offs, just to force you to pay for it. We carried on quickly, hoping to stay ahead of the crowds.

After that, the road started to get narrow and twisty, as we were promised it would. A few miles down the road we saw the rainbow forest. These were a few stands of Rainbow Eucalyptus trees, whose barks made linear patterns in multiple colors. We pulled into a random spot with a shoulder, and wandered off the road to check out the trees. The trees were neat, and this was just fun. 4/5 stars - quick, easy, and exactly what it says on the tin.

At this point we were in for a longer haul, so I'll describe the road. It was like Tail of the dragon meets the narrow backroads of Ireland. Constantly twisting around outcroppings and into valleys, with blind turns on the outside and one-lane bridges on the insides. I honestly had a blast, ripping through the back roads while keeping it smooth enough my parents didn't notice, bullying cars into letting me pass, letting the occasional motorcycle through, and just constantly managing brake, throttle, and steering inputs to keep everything glassy smooth.  You do miss a lot of the scenery because you can't take your eyes off the road, but this is typically only an issue for a few mega overviews of the ocean, or the waterfalls often found off the one-lane bridges in the valley hairpins.  Most of the road is posted at 15, and even that is too fast for many of the curves. If your a car guy, you'll have a lot of fun. Just be smart about it, because there are absolutely spots where you'll need to stop for oncoming or risk flying hundreds of feet down a mountain.  Like I said, it was so much fun. 5/5

Our next stop was supposed to be the ancient aqueduct, a channel carved by hand into the mountain that carries millions of gallons across the island, but there were zero signs so we never saw it. So we continued on, doing our best to stay ahead of the crowds, to Halfway-to-Hana, where we drove down to the ocean to get some famous banana bread. Not sure why it's famous, but it is, and we had to get some. I got a coke, which I thoroughly enjoyed, and we stopped to check out the ocean and snack... as cars filled in behind us to get more banana bread... The crowds were coming! Back to the highway! I can't score this, as bananas are gross, and fruitbreads are gross, but it was a fun stop and a good stretch, and the caffeine killed the rumbles of a headache that were beginning to threaten. Hopefully not from Sage's covid.

Next we had a long stretch, almost all the way into Hana itself, stopping just early to visit the lava tubes. We got there at 10:35, just five minutes after it opened, and basically had the whole thing to ourselves. And it was awesome. The tube probably averages 16' in diameter, and is over 2 miles long. Unfortunately, the landowners only have permission to exhibit the middle 1/4 mile of it, but that is still a massive cave and full of cool stuff and learning experiences. It helps that I've thought lavatubes were cool since I learned this nature bullshit exists. Lets be honest. You shouldn't be able to melt rocks and then form them into giant straws several miles long. But apparently that's a thing and it's awesome.  To kick it up further notches, they're flecked with pyrite, and with chemolithotrophs, which are shiny bacteria slowly eating the rock. This flow was from 960 years ago (at least when the signs were made), from a volcano that's part of Haleakala- the volcano we drove up two days ago - but not from the section we drove up. Walking through the tubes, you can see various flows in the tube from across the years. There is the first flow that formed the shell, then secondary flows formed inner shells over the bottom part, which formed droopy flows on the floor, including some distinctive "bowling alley" formations - where the sides get blocked so you have two gutters to each edge while the lava flows down the middle... It's just ridiculous. Then you get the side tubes where lava leaks in from the surface, you get stalactites everywhere, and rare lava stalagmites.  Near the end (of the portion we were allowed to explore) there was a blow-out, where a boulder fell and obstructed the tube. This lead to a large room before the blowout where the lava pooled, and then a hole reaching out to the surface, letting in light, air, bugs, and seeds. Ducking under the rocks we got to the back portion, which featured a side tunnel we "had to" (got to) crawl into.

We wandered through all of this, checking out the cracks, the flows, formations, turning our lights off to see how dark it was (very), trying to get pictures, and occasionally - but rarely - passing other tourists. So very cool, and my favorite event of the day. 10/5 stars. So good.  Outside, we gave our flashlights back and walked through the hedge maze. These were very low hedges, but still a pretty hard maze. Luckily, we could step over the hedges when we made a wrong turn. Between the three of us we got it - with whoever had gone astray stepping over to the correct path, but it was a bit hot and sweaty to worry too much about getting it clean. We got a few more drinks, some local chocolate, a recommendation for a beach, and we set off to Hana itself.

Hana itself is a cute little town, with a few churches, parks, gift shops, etc... but we didn't do any of that. Dad read that the best beach was the red-sand beach, but it was deeply discouraged. There's no parking, the only signs say things like "risky trail you may die" and "respect our sacred land" and "no tourism" and shit like that. With that many warnings it must be great. We eventually found some streetside parking swooping in behind other tourists on their way out, and set off down the unmarked trail at the end of the road. The trail didn't start sketchy (aside from the "we told you not to do this you can't sue us" psuedolegal warnings, but it quickly became sketchy.  Gravelly trails on the side of a cliff, with nice dropoffs 30-50 feet onto the stony shore below. 1000% up my alley, tame enough to be within (but near the edge of) my parents comfort boundary, and the views were stunning. Green rainforest topping red and black cliffs plunging into the pacific ocean, with deep blue waves being smashed against them by the stiff north-shore winds. The sort of view that makes you feel alive.  The end of the trail was the sketchiest bit, so my mom hung out 40' above the red sand beach at the second-sketchiest spot, while my dad and I went down to the beach.

Most of it was red (and a few black) pebbles, but in regions they were ground to red sand, as promised. There was a barrier wall of rocks limiting the waves in the cove, and the whole thing surrounded by 100 feet of cliffs to every side. Absolutely beautiful. I can see why all the instagram models love it. I took a try at scampering across the boulders to the overhang on the far side, but they were spread out a bit too far and a bit too slimy to safely chance it. So we took a bunch of pictures, poked at the sand, and eventually headed back up to see mom.

On our way out, pausing to hang out on oceanside rocks that would be a standout attraction anywhere else, we passed a whole squad of instagram models heading the other way, checking their hair and struggling in their fancy flipflops. 7/5 stars. Absolutely great, and one of my must-do's on the island if you like waves and cliffs, two things I love.

Having had two great successes in a row, and beaten the crowds to all of them, it was time to eat lunch. We headed out to the beach recommend by the lavatube-doorman, a few miles past Hana. Both it and the nearby beach were gorgeous, but his was packed and had a bunch of stairs, and we were ready to chill for a bit. So we went to the nextdoor beach and found a spot where we could park, beachfront, in the shade. We had a picnic, birdwatched, surferwatched, and just enjoyed the success of our trip to Hana. 5/5 for this random picnic spot, probably the best car-picnic-spot I've ever picnicked.

Now, time to head back home. We were sorta worn out, and we'd already hit all the good stuff, so we had a short list for the way back. Maybe the arboretum, and the ancient irrigation canals. I started bombing it through the back roads, playing with a motorcycle and a jeep, not really doing anything harder than before, but my mom made the mistake of trying to research the arboretum and started getting carsick. So I dialed it way back and smoothed out whatever I could. There was slightly more traffic than before, and at one point I found a truck in a spot too narrow for cars, so we both backed up until he found a widespot which let me squeeze by with multiple inches of clearance. All this dumb stuff is fun for me, so great day.  Coming up to one of the switchback singlelane bridges, I caught a glimpse of a waterfall - one I couldn't look at before, as I was making sure the oncoming car stopped and let us off the bridge. So I pulled over and jogged down to it. I think it was Big Bear Falls? And it looked like a slice of Eden, with multiple waterfalls, a big pool reaching back into an alcove, a view of the sea in the distance... there were even a few people swimming there. 5/5 would recommend stopping for this one. I would have hiked in, but the parents were chilling in the car, so I kept it quick.

After this it was just a haul as we headed to the arboretum... which wasn't there. No idea if it was closed, or was written up wrong in the guide book, but it just wasn't there. There weren't even signs or evidence it was there, just a locked gate blocking a dirt trail and a mongoose! #3 for today. So we headed to the next arboretum! At this point, my knee was sore. Just too much delicate gas and brake, constantly, on a car that was very sensitive and jumpy on both. We got to the second arboretum and it was far too fancy for our tastes. The dude at the gate was giving every car in the line a 5 minute breakdown on all the attractions on the grounds, and then charging $20 per person. We didn't care that much, so when we got to the head of the line I gracefully apologized, told him we made a wrong turn, and looped to the exit.  Dad and I switched at this point, so he could drive the last 10% of the fun section, and I could take a break. It was interesting to see it from the passenger side, as you can take in the views, but you're also much closer to the stone walls and the foliage that you're occasionally forced to brush against.  Almost immediately, dad met a car in a narrow section and had to back up the hill 30' so they could pass, so he definitely got the full experience lol.

Checking the guidebooks, GPS, milemarkers... we thought we knew about where the irrigation channels were. There was some very suspicious straight blue lines on the GPS, and when we saw a dirt road at about the right distance, we grabbed the next pull-off to go check it out. We parked, hiked back to the dirt road, and set off. The road immediately became a path, and then that almost petered out. We ended up at an overgrown concrete aqueduct passing under a nearly-dry streambed, with rusted metal grates on it. This definitely isn't ancient and hand carved, but it was tunneled into the mountain and was clearly an irrigation project. I was expecting a (less cool) version of the Nazcan puquios of Peru, and ended up with a glorified storm drain. I have a secret love for hydrological engineering, to the point where I wander around checking drains during flash floods, so it was still fun for me, but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone else, and we spent the rest of the trip trying to figure out how this made it into the guide books. 1/5 stars, but it was funny.

Shortly after that we made it back to the real roads, and boogied back to the airbnb to hang out with the baby (and my brother/SIL). After chatting about our days, we wandered over to the food truck court, which was the trendiest foodtruck center I've ever seen. Pricey, but good food, and Sage was back to being an angel. Afterwards we walked over to the coast to watch the sunset, Adam grabbed a few beers for us, and we watched the sun peak out from behind the clouds to duck behind the horizon. I shot a timelapse, and hung out for a bit afterwards to continue, while they headed back to the house.

Back home, we played with the baby, put her to bed, and played some dice. Now, this. And listening to the upstairs neighbors clomp around. Fantastic day. A shame we couldn't bring the rest of the crew, but we saw some amazing scenery none the less, and I got to drive probably the best road of my life (combined score, twisties/scenery/tarmac).  Tomorrow, we fly out to the next island, and we see who gets to have covid there. Aloha.