Travel Photos

The Road to Hana

The Road to Hana is a beautifully scenic road along the coast of Maui. It is 52 miles of undeveloped road, with 56 one-lane bridges and 617 curves and turns. Instead of the guided bus tour, Sue and I thought we'd rent a car with our friends Bill and Jan, and make the drive ourselves.

The first stop was a little sketchy. It was a fruit stand on the side of the road, and we had to hike a ways into the woods to the twin falls. It was rainy and the way down to the falls was slippery, so we decided to turn around and head back to the car. Sue was able to get this picture before we left.

The next stop was a much shorter hike, but no less slippery or treacherous. The girls stayed in the car and Bill and I hiked out. By this point, most of the rivers and falls were swelled with rain water.

Boulder Beach on the Ke`anae Peninsula. This was one of the few places in Maui that we saw volcanic. Most of the island has been eroded down into fertile soil.

The waves coming in over the black rocks were pretty cool.

There wasn't much of a beach to speak of, though.

The four of us tried forever to get a picture with a large wave crashing in over head, and this is the best we could come up with.

One great part about the rain is that all the waterfalls were flowing. And there were a lot of waterfalls.

Most of the waterfalls had names, but I could only match up a few of our pictures. These are the Wakani Falls.

All of them were very beautiful, though.

Did I mention the 54 one lane bridges? A lot of them looked to be in rough shape. Despite our tour guide warning us how "hard" the drive was, and that the driver wouldn't enjoy it, Bill and I found it quite fun.

This waterfall was right next to the road and I was able to get close enough to look up into it.

And here was another waterfall.

Here is a good shot of the road. It was all paved very well, but there were a lot of twists and turns. Two in particular felt like the road turned back in on itself. Quite a shock if you weren't expecting it.

And another waterfall.

The bridges and certain stretches of road were only wide enough for one car.

And here is another waterfall. There would be one every mile or so along the way. And each one seemed to get more and more beautiful.

And one more waterfall. The water was a little brown from all the rain runoff.

And finally, we got to Hana. Not much there. We found one food stand down by the water and had lunch before turning around and heading back. The whole round trip took about 7 hours.

People on our trip who took the bus tour said that the road after Hana was really rough, and not nearly as beautiful. They did get to visit a nice winery and Charles Lindbergh's grave though.

Last Updated: 7/29/06