#Road to Hana
We docked in Kailua on the island of Maui this morning and are going to be spending 2 days here. We had organised a private tour of the island heading out to a coastal city of Hana. Our tour guide, Georgia, is a local who had lived in Maui her whole life and this was evident in the amount of information and knowledge she had about the island.
When at the Big Island, the Hawaiian landscape was very different to what I had expected. The drive to Hana is more aligned to my expectations of Hawaii. There were sense jungles and rolling hills with deep crevices and numerous waterfalls. The road was incredibly windy and while the total distance from the pier to Hana is only 70kms, it took almost 3 hours. We stopped along the way to see some powerful waterfalls. Apparently it rained a lot yesterday and hence the waterfalls and rivers were overflowing. Moreover as all the mountains are made of lava rock, they are incredibly porous and water seems to seep out of the rock itself. I was quite amazed by how deep the valleys were and how they changed as we drove along.
We stopped along the way to look at some rainbow eucalypts which has different colours in the various layers of bark. We stopped at the roadside for lunch and had tacos from a food truck. We visited a beach with black sand and also got to go through a lava tube on the beach. On the drive back we saw a beach full of turtles who were sleeping in the sun. It was quite a sight.
A couple of interesting things about the island of Maui. Quite a number of the inhabitants don’t have a regular job and live off the land. They have minimal needs and they hunt, father and farm what they require. Usually one person in an entire family will have a job with the local parks department or the roads department and the income will be to pay for any additional items. The road and parks along the way we’re all maintained by the locals.
blackCarrot 