Hawaii - Road to Hana

We drove the road to Hana.  And survived... but barely!

It's only 30 miles long but it takes about 2 hours to navigate the narrow winding road. At many parts the road/bridge is only one car wide so there is a lot of stopping and giving way. Given that it took about an hour to get to the start of the road we ended up spending about 6 hours in the car that day.  No wonder we were all tired and cranky at the end.

Along the way we saw lots of beautiful scenery and waterfalls. Interestingly we didn't see any hibiscus, red ti or frangipani plants.  All of these plants adorn the resorts but don't seem to be prevalent across the rest of Maui.

Our port of call at the end of the road was the Hana Lava Tube.  We had a great time exploring this underground tube with torches/flash lights.  Lucy and Henry were so brave they ran off without us into the dark.  Felicity absolutely loved being in the dark in the cave and cried until she was allowed to walk herself. Even though she ended up with skinned knees she just loved it.  I think Andrew has 3 little cavers on his hands. After the cave (which included a geocache) we headed up to the maze made out of Red Ti.  The kids loved getting to the centre and then finding their way out to our picnic lunch purchased at Whole Foods.

After lunch we drove to the black sand beach at Waianapanapa [say that fast 3 times!]  The rocks were really hot after baking in the sun all day but were great for putting on sore neck muscles.  Felicity chose to taste the rocks instead. Disappointingly there were SO many tourists! It's not that big of a beach and despite rip warning there were many swimmers. 

At the end of the grueling drive we stopped off at Mama's Fish House.  Sounds like a hole in the wall eatery but it's actually a pretty fancy restaurant to which we were slightly underdressed.  The kids had a play at the little beach in front of the restaurant beforehand and then we enjoyed some good fresh fish (or lamb if you're Andrew)