The Hana Highway

After a relaxing morning at the Four Seasons shaking the post wedding celebration stupor, we set off for a scenic drive along the Hana Highway. It is a long and winding road cut into that weaves alongside the eastern side of the island. The drive takes about 3 hours of white knuckle driving with a cliff on one side and the mountain side on the other. Jon thought he was a rally car driver and it was completely freaking me out. According to Wikipedia, there are approximately 620 curves along Highway 360 from just east of Kahului to Hana; which means there were approximately 620 times I yelled "Slow the frick, down" or some variation of that phrase.



Then to make matters worse, I read in the guidebook that Many of the concrete and steel bridges date back to 1910 and all but one are still in use. That one bridge, badly damaged by erosion, has been paralleled by a portable steel bridge erected by the Army Corps of Engineers. Signs on the old bridge warn pedestrians to stay off due to imminent collapse. My nervous tendencies construed that all of the bridges were going to collapse imminently.

Our first stop was in the bamboo forest and had we had a bit more time, we would have loved to hike out to the waterfall, but with the long drive, it wasn't feesible.

The drive passes through beautiful, tropical rainforest and has many beautiful waterfalls. We had lunch on mangos and other goodies that we found at self-service fruit stands along the road. With daylight fading we made quick stops at the black and red sand beaches and darted off to the Seven Sacred Pools.



We were really looking forward to taking a swim in the pools, but they were closed due to high water levels. We watched the sunset over the pools and had a chat to a few local fisherman.

Then... we had to drive home on the Hana Highway in the dark. All I can say is I am lucky to be alive =)