Connection Point

Friday, July 01, 2011

Maui Adventures III – The Road to Hana

Had a rough night sleeping – kept waking up for some reason.  5:15 am came really early again today.  We were hoping to get on the road at 6 am headed for Hana; let’s just say everyone was as tired as I was so we were a little delayed.  The drive was estimated at about 3 hours one way, except we were driving about 74 miles.  It was a winding mountainous road leading to Hana, most of it single lane and huge section of unpaved roads.  It was quite the trip.

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Jarron manning the wheel on this drive to Hana

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The view from the drive

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Some of the few & far between patches of “straight” road.

Finally after about 3 hours of driving and then getting lost and getting some more distinctive directions from the locals we found our first stop – 7 Pools.  These were 7 pools of water coming from waterfalls leading out to the ocean.

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Our first warnings…

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Ocean view from the top of the last pool before the ocean.

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Quick upward view of the different pools and the waterfall.

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Jarron posing for a profile pic.

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My turn.

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Eric getting stepping into the ocean

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The water was nice and cold.

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Welcome to the ocean.

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Surrounding rock and greenery

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The 3 person shot (me taking of Eric and Eric taking of Jarron)

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The Falls

Next stop – Red Sand Beach.  This place seemed to be an elusive place.  We were told the access was shut off to the public but we could risk it and try to get to the beach.  We asked around some more and got an inside scoop and found the best place to park and hike down to this famous beach.  It was indeed tricky to find and quite a treacherous hike (especially in flip flops) but we were determined.

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The view on the way to the red sand beach

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The cove where the red sand beach was located.

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Very scenic

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The boys and their “beach ready” bodies ;-) (not so much)

After we took this shot, we started our descent to the beach and what we were not really prepared for what was to come.  As we made our approach to the beach, we started noticing some of the people already at the beach and swimming were nude.  As such we have no pictures from the red sand beach.  It was quite an interesting experience.  On one side of us were two older gentlemen from Europe who were very used to being naked in public and then on the other side were a younger couple that were basically hitchhiking their way around the island and had no issues being in the buff.  We did our thing and had fun.  We didn’t stay long for obvious reasons and we also wanted to check out the other spots around Hana.

Our next stop was the black sand beach which was located in a state park and so there were a lot more people there and of all ages; quite a change from our last stop.

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We found ourselves a shady spot on the sand and actually all fell asleep for a couple of hours before heading on the road back towards our hotel.  We were going to stop in a town on the way back for dinner.  We started on our next 74 mile trip down hill.

It was a really fun day albeit a tiring one.  Another early morning awaits us but it should be another fun day.  We are heading out to sea on a boat for a snorkeling trip – really looking to it because it will be my first time snorkeling.  Until tomorrow…peace out.

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