Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Before the drive to Hana, we stopped and picked up lunch bags in the nice town of Paia and then set out on our way. On our way we stopped at a place called the Twin Falls which provided and easy hike, a refreshing place for a dip in the water, and a nice place to eat lunch.
The road to Hana is infamous for a ton of hairpin turns and single lane bridges. It's a beautiful area but it makes for slow progress. Fortunately, we had already transitioned to "Hawaii time" and didn't really care how long it took. The coast line along the entire road is absolutely stunning.
Arriving in Hana by late afternoon, we checked into our next B&B named the Bamboo Inn. It was a very nice B&B with a lanai overlooking a black sand beach and the ocean.
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
Getting out early, we drove a little farther south to an area known as the Seven Sacred Pools. We started out the day by doing a 4 mile round trip hike up to some falls which were more unbelievable than anything we'd seen so far on the vacation.
The first pic below was pretty tricky to set up with the timer on my phone camera. Phone camera's are not overly nice to try to get set up to stay in one position. The second one is the upper part of the trail which winds through a massive bamboo jungle leaving you feeling like your in a dream world.
And then finally you reach these stunning falls.
Then you reach a sign telling you it's dangerous to go any further, which of course leads you to go further.
Hiking back down (yes indeed - the right kind of hike ... up on the way there and down on the way back) we switched into bathing suits and had a nice swim in one of the 7 sacred pools down at the base.
One of the repeat visitors we talked to while we were swimming told us that Charles Lindbergh was buried about 5 miles up on the road we were on. After swimming, we drove on up, had to ask a local as to the exact location of his grave (because Hawaii doesn't believe in marking anything) and finally found it behind a small church. He and his wife lived near there and attended the church until he died in 1972. I also found out by checking out Wikipedia that good old Charles actually had 14 children ... 6 by his first and only wife until his death and 8 others by 3 other mistresses he had throughout his years of marriage. The existance of all the other siblings came out to the kids of his marriage several years after he had died.
The ocean view from behind his grave was also quite stunning, although we were quickly beginning to realize that there's not to many bad ocean views in Hawaii.
Thursday, October 13, 2011
Thursday was a bit of a quiet day to recover and get ready to move on to the next island. We did make it to a beach called Waianapanapa which has black sand and several lava tubes and blow holes. Tina was styling again in her newly acquired Hawaiian swimming wrap.
Friday, October 14, 2011
In getting back from Hana to the airport, we could have gone back the way we came to Hana (the northern route) or taken a new route (the southern route). I've teased Kara about not giving us fair warning on the southern route but truth be told she really did. Nonetheless we did the southern route. I talked Tina into doing it by rationalizing that going that way meant my driver side of the car would be closer to the ocean side of the road while her side would be hugging the cliffs. Not sure that would work again! :) Fortunately the REALLY bad part of the road ONLY lasted about 10 miles. UNFORTUNATELY, when you're going 5 mph, 10 miles is a really really long time. :)
We made it through ... perhaps 5 years older than when we left ... and even managed to visit Maui's only winery before doing a couple more loads of laundry and hitting up the airport for "The Big Island". Stay tuned for that adventure.
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