The Road to Kihei

This week, we were able to do something new. Something we've never done before. And really, this is a big part of this trip. Doing things we've never done before. Like a quick 180 on a boogie board. Or speaking another language. Or decorating a fabric Christmas tree. This week, we traded in our beater Corolla for a beater Jeep and headed out on a little adventure.

The road to Hana is well travelled by virtually everyone who comes to Maui. Maui`s circumference is traced by basically one road that hugs the shoreline, all the way around (except for the very south west), and a few roads that head up Haleakala (the old volcano). The road to Hana starts in Kahului (the big city) and heads east past Pa'ia on a winding road full of ocean vistas and waterfalls too numerous to count or stop for. We've actually done this trip before, many years ago. The eastern side of the island is a rainforest and the greenness and freshness of the landscape is breathtaking. The general idea is that you pick up a boxed lunch in Pa'ia, put in a audio tour cd in the car stereo, pop a Gravol and start driving. When you get to Hana, you have lunch at Hana Bay, then turn around and come home the way you came. All in all, it's a day trip. But this time, our goal was not the drive to Hana, but the trek home around the other side, past Hana. So we decided to stop first at Ho'okipa where the Billabong Triple Crown of surfing was relocated to from Honolua Bay and take in some world class surfing. We then kinda blew by the many waterfalls on the way to Hana, stopping at places we haven't seen before. We got to Hana in mid afternoon, dropped our stuff at the small studio we had rented (very basic but right on Hana Bay) and checked out parts of Hana we haven't seen before like Hamoa Beach, where the waves are teal shade of gray and come in fast and furious. We generally like Hana. It's old, curious and has a charm that is untouched by typical tourist areas like the one we live in. However, this "charm" also means that there is no-where to eat! There are 3 places, a bayside burger shack that closes at 4. A restaurant touted as the worst on the island that closes at 7 and the ultra expensive hotel. So, we went to the hotel, but ate at the bar, where our $18 burger and $15 caesar salad filled us enough to go back to our little room and sleep.

The next morning began the real part of this trip. We got up early to watch an amazing sunrise with no other soul on the beach. We see sunrises here, but they come up over the mountain, about 30 minutes later. This one was right out of the ocean. We then got ready, packed up and went looking for food. But unfortunately the only place to eat breakfast was the expensive hotel, where $19 bacon and eggs wasn't really turning us on. So we grabbed some yogurt, coffee and banana bread at the local general store (where chili dogs were cooking and being bought) and headed out. Our first stop was the Ohe'o Gulch - part of the national park of Haleakala and hiked around a bit. We really wanted to swim at the 7 Sacred Pools, but they were closed due to high water levels. So we carried on the bumpy, unpaved one lane road full of blind hairpin turns and watched the rainforest turn back to grassland and desert. The ocean is always on the left and the mountain on your right. In a lot of areas if you lean too far out the passenger window and you`ll scrape your arm on the 100 foot high rock face. Look out too far on the drivers side and you`ll get vertigo from staring down hundreds of feet to the ocean. A term that Alex uses `Dat carey`was used by us a lot! Our favourite part was putting the Jeep in 4WD, offroading to a deserted beach area and checking it out. As we carried on, and made it back to smooth pavement, we passed people coming the other way (to Hana) in their normal rental cars and thinking to ourselves that they were in for some major surprises. The road to Hana from the north is nothing compared to that back road, and a truck or jeep is I think necessary.

The road doesn`t hug the ocean the whole way. Instead it snakes up the mountain to Kula - which is directly above Kihei and then down again heading north to Kahului, where you double back to Kihei. So the Road to Hana for us, was really all about a road back home to Kihei. It wasn`t the destination but the trip itself. Which funnily enough, is exactly what this whole mini-retirement is all about.