As the title indicates, today was our Road to Hana day. Despite the 620 curves, the road is actually pretty great. Just take your time, pull over when safe to do so to let others pass you, and be courteous at the single lane bridges — of which there are many.
Many other blogs and articles about driving the Road to Hana tell you to leave at stupid-o’clock in the morning so you can see and do everything and still make it back before dark. We did not do this. I am not a stupid-o’clock-in-the-morning kind of person, so it frankly would have ruined my day to have to get up that early. Instead we focused on only doing enough to still get to the beach on time for our reserved time slot.
With that in mind, we left the condo at about 9:00 a.m. At the recommendation of my friend Michelle, we downloaded an audio app called Shaka Guide which offers narrated driving tours for all over the world, including the Road to Hana. BEST RECOMMENDATION EVER! This app had cool narration, spot on navigation with points of interest, recommendations for stops and when to take them, travel time estimation, and local music and stories between navigation instructions. The music was appropriate to the drive — in that it was soothing Hawaiian music to keep you calm on the road rather than heavy metal or rock which would stress you out.
The scenery was amazing on the drive. Our first stop was at the Ke’anae Peninsula where we got a close-up view of the ocean breaking against young lava rocks. We ate chili and hotdogs at Aunty Sandy’s Banana Bread, and yes, we also picked up a loaf of banana bread, which is totally everything it’s hyped up to be.
We continued on our way and didn’t stop again until we reached the Wai’anapanapa State Park, which is where the Black Sand Beach is. Very cool place! The way the black pebbles on the beach move tickled my feet, and the black sand itself was slippery(?) due to how round it was — although not as much as the sand at Ho’okipa Beach. I swam in the water twice while we were there, and we ate some more Maui Gold pineapple, before meandering along a path to an outcrop overlooking a blowhole and looking back towards the beach. It started raining at that point, but our timeslot was nearly over anyway.
We moved on to the Hana Lava Tube, which is the 18th largest lava tube in the world. You pay for entry and they give you a flashlight so you can see where you’re going. You go down these steps into the pitch black (hence the need for flashlights) and then walk in the tube for a quarter mile following information panels. There were very cool features throughout, and the ceiling in most of it was at least 20 feet high (no worries about claustrophobia here). We didn’t see them, but apparently there are a few kinds of insects and worms that live in the tube that are specifically evolved to do so. Dan managed to find a single stalk growing out of the ground on one side, apparently without light. At one point there’s a feature of a type of stalactite that looks like chocolate, although to me they look more like cacao beans before they’re dried out. The entire tour only took about 30-40 minutes, and we thought it was well worth the $15 entry fee.
By this time it was already quarter to 5:00, so we just drove straight back to the condo. We agreed that the Road to Hana is a worthy repeat adventure, given there are so many wonderful places we could have stopped along the way. But the drive itself is worth it all on its own. On the way through Paia we noticed a lot of traffic parked on the side of the road and speculated that it might be to watch some surfing. We recalled that earlier in the day there had been high surf warnings, and sure enough as we drove a little further down the highway where we could see the shore the waves were spectacular! They were maybe three times higher than the last time we passed by that area (Ho’okipa Beach).
When we got back we were quite hungry, so after a quick shower and change we looked up Italian restaurants in Wailea and picked the first one that came up: Olivine. We made a reservation through OpenTable without really thinking about it and left right away. What we didn’t realize until we got there was that Olivine is at the Grand Wailea Resort (a Waldorf Astoria property). There’s no self-parking, it’s all valet parking which is included. The restaurant is all the way at the other end of the property on the ground floor by the pools — we had to take the elevator down four floors from the lobby. We had to ask directions from the Bellman to get to the right elevators, and then we had to follow another young couple going to the same place through the dark pathways to find it. We ended up inadvertently treating our selves to a VERY expensive Italian dinner that was SO worth it! The wait staff was very friendly, and despite the price we had a lovely evening.
After a long but wonderful day I’m ready to just relax and read for a bit. So with that, Aloha ahiahi!
Adelle and Dan
Guigon Travels 