The first real stop we made was at the Garden of Eden, a privately owned botanical garden near Haiku. I have to say, this was the highlight of the day for me. It wasn't too hot, there was plenty of shade, and unlike everywhere else along the road, it wasn't crowded (this is probably because there's an admission charge). We spent plenty of time wandering along beautifully maintained paths, checking out waterfall overlooks, and admiring the native flora and fauna. Liam and Max even tried coconut water served out of fresh coconuts, which it turns out they didn't enjoy (I tried it, and frankly, warm coconut water isn't my thing either). They did, however, really enjoy being able to throw their "cups" into the jungle (at the direction of the owners) when they were done.
Once we left the Garden of Eden and got back on the road to Hana, the morning became kind of a blur of narrow curving roads, jungle pressing in on both sides, and waterfalls every so often. The view finally opened up around Ke'anae, a town just shy of halfway to Hana. We stopped at a roadside park with amazing lava rock coastline and explored for a little bit, and also stopped at Aunty Sandy's, a roadside stand with legendary banana bread and locally made ice cream (we got Kona mud pie, and it was delicious).
I didn't take any pictures of the road itself, probably because it was so disorienting. We kind of lost all sense of direction with the switchbacks and thick vegetation. There were plenty of waterfalls just alongside the road, and we did stop to take pictures of some of them.
The boys really wanted to swim in a waterfall pool; it was all they talked about all morning. They finally got their wish when we got to Pua'a Ka'a State Wayside Park. And even though the air temperature was about 90, they discovered that the water in the pool was COLD. So cold that it took them a good 10 minutes to even get the courage to venture more than knee deep. Henry lost one of his water shoes in the current, and they couldn't recover it, so he spent the rest of the day barefoot. Luckily for him, Liam came to his rescue with a piggyback ride back up the stone path.
The other item on the boys' wish list for today was to swim at a black sand beach. This we accomplished at Wai'anapanapa Park. The park also has a blowhole, which Mike got to check out up close. This area was extremely crowded, and the waves were really rough, so we made the boys get out much sooner than they wanted to. They were pretty upset about it, but their feathers settled a little after we stopped at another, calmer black sand beach once we got to Hana.
And this, friends, is where the day went sideways. It was after noon by the time we got to Hana, and we went in search of food, but everything we tried had some kind of disaster attached to it. One place had an entry so steep that we scraped the undercarriage of the minivan trying to get in. The next place was inexplicably closed. You get the picture. So we drove on past Hana, thinking we could just circumnavigate the island and get back to Kihei via less crowded and hopefully less curvy roads. We stopped at the visitor center for the ocean section of Haleakala National Park, and Mike talked to a ranger, only to find out that the roads we wanted to take would be dangerous to drive on, and wouldn't even take us where we wanted to go. Whoops.
So we set off back to Hana, along terrifyingly sharply curved roads with blind one-lane bridges. I was driving for this part of the trip (Mike needed a break, y'all) and can attest that it was extremely stressful. We got back to Hana around 2:00 and found a pod of food trucks that was accessible. Most of them were closed, but there was one called Eye Lava Tacos that looked promising, so we ordered a selection of tacos and burritos and sat down to wait. We'll get some food and things will look better, we thought. And the universe laughed, and the taco truck ran out of propane. They refunded our money, and we retreated to the minivan, tired, hungry, and all around discouraged.
At this point, I was also thinking ahead to the next day, when we planned to take the ferry to Lanai and spend the day exploring. I had made ferry reservations and rented a jeep to drive around the island, and we planned to spend the whole day there. A quick poll, however, showed that we were unanimous in wanting to cancel. Henry's throat was still hurting, and as Liam put it, we were all just burned out. So while we had service, I called the rental places and canceled all the reservations. We all felt pretty relieved about that, so it was the right call for sure.
The trip back to civilization was accomplished with as few stops as possible, but we still didn't make it back to our condo until around 6:00. Overall, we're glad we went because it's one of those things you're "supposed" to see if you're on Maui, but we definitely wouldn't do it again. It took up the entire day, pre-dawn to sunset, and we were completely wiped out and overwhelmed by it all. Our best advice if you decide you want to go is to start early, bring plenty of food, and turn around as soon as you get to Hana instead of going on to the national park (I can't believe I just said that, but I stand by it). If you can, take two days. And get ready to make several thousand new friends along the way.
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