For our last full day in Maui, we decided to make the long hard journey to the south side of the island by way of the Road to Hana. I can not overstate enough how winding this road is. For approximately half of the trip, you are more technically sharing a one-lane highway with blind turns every 100 yards. I was getting car sick, and I was driving...
Our first stop of the day's road trip was at Ho'okipa Lookout. It started as a bathroom break but turned into an exciting time watching the surfers below. I had never seen surfers like I did that day before. It wasn't like the waves were crazy big, but it was still exhilarating.
We ventured on making stops here and there at neat lookouts or exotic beaches, but the weather was starting to come in the closer we got to Hana. It must get stuck on that part of the island. To get out of the rain, we opted to explore the Hana Lava Tube. It was a pretty cool self-guided tour of a lava carved cave that also doubles as a private fallout shelter in cases of nuclear war. The cave hike was around a half mile out and back and was an excellent opportunity to experience total pitch black darkness when you turn off your flashlight.
Our last destination before making the long trip back, was the south side of Haleakala National Park to stretch our legs and hike up through the bamboo forest to get to the Waimoku Falls. The hike was stunning with all the overgrown jungle vegetation; it was a feeling like you just landed in Jumanji. The bamboo forest was incredible; I had never seen bamboo so thick. In Oregon we have bamboo, but it's about an inch thick at best, in the bamboo forest it was 6-8 inches thick and grew incredible dense together.
Once we got to the end of the trail, we were a little disappointed. The path abruptly stopped with a sign in the middle of the trail (no viewing area), informing us that we could not go any further and that if we did, we could get finned. The main reason for this, which I understand, is that the area can get dangrous quick with a rainstorm and the area flash flooding. In fact, we ended up heading back sooner than we though, because it started pouring on us pretty hard while we were there. I just wish there was a better viewing area because when there is a lot of people around, there is no place to go. Other than that, it was stunning. It was also kind of fun to because in a massive rainstorm in nothing but shorts and a tank top and have it be refreshing.
