DAY 5

Day 5 ... Early warning! This day has a lot of pictures.

We were out by 6:45. We wanted to get a fairly early start on the other people driving the "Road to Hana". The T-shirts claim:

52 miles
3 hours
617 curves
56 bridges

Okay, so here is the lush green along the road.



And one of the many 1 1/2 lane sections that usually happen before approaching a bridge from either side.



And some of the many colorful plants along the way.



And one of the 56 bridges. There's our rental car on the right.



And some wet foliage. Everything is wet!



The trees drop very interesting flowers.



Here is the coast in the town of Ke'anae. A very beautiful area.



And looking back at part of the road that we had already driven.



Half-way there! That didn't take long did it? Unless you've been savoring these pictures for the last 90-minutes.



Looking down on Nahiku.



One of the many waterfalls. This one was under a bridge.



And here is a side view of it. This one is called Makapipi Falls.



Every thing was so richly green.



Coast in the town of Nahiku. The drive to this location is very cool. "Maui Revealed" described it like this: "If you think the road to Hana looked lush and beautiful, wait till you see Nahiku. When plants go to heaven, Nahiku must be their destination. Everything green seems so happy and healthy, you can almost hear them giggling. Life bursts from every corner at the bottom half of the road."

We drove very slowly to listen to the giggling. And we laughed ourselves.



Church in Nahiku.



Tree in Nahiku.



Nahiku.



I had too much fun taking pictures of these post boxes.



And the "Community Bulletin" in Nahiku. So quaint.



This is the area of the Wai'anapanapa Black Sand Beach. And there is a sea arch here as well. Also a blow hole. You can't see the beach in this picture, but there's one at the bottom of this post.



They also recycle here. In fact, they recycle everywhere, which is pretty cool!



And a cemetery in this area. Pretty interesting. But then I am pretty interested in cemeteries.



We ate lunch at Tutu's Snack Shop in Hana. This was the view of Hana Bay from our picnic table.



Free range rooster wandering the Hana Highway.



'Ohe'o Gulch (aka 7 Sacred Pools) from the highway.



Don't laugh at me. OK, don't laugh too hard because I know you won't be able to help it. Sometimes my dumb twin comes out to play. When I saw this sign, I was seriously expecting some loud noise to blare out suddenly! Like the very end of the Haunted Mansion ride at Lagoon. I was almost looking for the two lights to flash.

I figured out soon after my dumb twin left the building that it meant we were supposed to blow our car horn so that people would know we were coming around the corner. Ah....



We saw a lot of these signs, too. And I like the way this picture turned out.



Ha, ha. And this is the sign that we kept seeing repeatedly on Day 2 that we kept repeatedly ignoring. I snapped it as we quickly drove by it. Again.



When we hit the REAL road closed section, we decided to go for a little hike. The first section was through a banyan tree forest.



Then we emerged at Alelele Falls. This is a 20-30 foot drop.



So, we went swimming. It was very cold. Not like the warm ocean, less than 1/8 of a mile away from this spot.



The first blossom of a flowering tree. I can't imagine how pretty it must look when it's all in bloom.



Hiking along the closed road, we ran across this sign. I was pretty tired by this point and it made me laugh.



One of the 57 bridges. This was a white knuckle bridge.



A tree at Koki Beach.



We stopped at Wai'anapanapa Black Sand Beach again on the way back.



The contrast of the black sand and the white foam of the sea was AMAZING!



The sand is also very gritty and sounded like marbles rolling together. It started to rain while we were here, but we were enjoying it so much we didn't go back to the car. We had a very large surprise wave attack us and we got wet.

It's cool that you can be in a downpour in Maui, and feel completely comfortable. I had my hat on so my face wasn't getting wet, and I never got chilled.

We picked up some banana bread, apple bananas, and avocados at a stand on the way back to Haiku. We grilled some steak and veggies for dinner.

Another great day!