Road to Hana

The first year I went to Maui I did a very quick Road to Hana trip.  Those of you who have done the Road to Hana know that it's anything but quick.  I swore that I would never do it again.  Well, five years later Aaron wanted to go, so we did.  My parents were babysitting thankfully.  The only thing worse than the Road to Hana would be doing it with a toddler.

Only this time it wasn't so bad.  Actually some of it was nice.

Rainbow Eucalyptus 

We stopped at Coconut Glen's to get some coconut candy.  They also made ice cream that was out of coconut milk and completely vegan (I thought of you Jeannie and Greg!).  I could have gone with regular flavors like coconut and chocolate, but I decided to try the unique flavors.  One was chipotle chocolate chip which was kind of good actually.  Definitely a kick at the end.  The other was red curry pineapple.  I love red curry with coconut milk when having thai food, so I was kind of excited about it.  It was ok, but not great.  The coconut candy was phenomenal!

We decided to go to the Red Sand Beach.  It was quite a hike to get in there, but I loved it.  There was a natural barrier so that there was calm water right by the beach.  We didn't have our swimsuits with us so we didn't stray too far into the water, but this is definitely somewhere I'd like to go again.  It would have been a perfect beach for Esme except that the hike there would be too hard to take her.

On the hike there we saw this "coral" tree

Beautiful Red Sand Beach

I think the key to going to Hana would be to actually stay in Hana for a day or two and make sure to go and enjoy this beach.

We also stopped at the O'heo Gulch.  I was very nervous about this.  The last time I was here the waterfalls were rushing and the Seven Sacred Pools were not even visible.  I lost my footing and almost ended up falling down into the raging water.  I would have been swept to sea for sure.  I thought that since it was a similar time of year, it would look like it again.  But it was very calm and nice and you could walk to all the pools and swim in them if you wanted to.  A very different (and much better) experience.

It's very easy to miss things on the Road to Hana and one of the things that we missed that we really wanted to see was the bamboo forest.  It was right across the road from the O'heo Gulch and we just didn't see it.  I was disappointed.

Finally we took the back road back to the main part of the island.  It is a very different world over there.  There are cattle and cattle gates and ranches.  It looks like barren prairie - a lot like North Dakota actually, except for that constant ocean view of course.

So overall, I would say that I would do the Road to Hana again just to spend more time at the Red Sand Beach and see the bamboo forest.  Who knows, maybe we'd even run into Oprah sometime!