Hana Highway



This morning we left around 7:00 am for a day-long adventure of driving the Hana Highway.    Hāna is only about 52 miles (84 km) from Kahului, but it takes about 2.5 hours to drive when no stops are made as the highway is very winding and narrow and passes over 59 bridges, 46 of which are only one lane wide. There are approximately 620 curves along Route 360 from just east of Kahului to Hāna, almost all of it through lush, tropical rainforest. Many of the concrete and steel bridges date back to 1910 and all but one are still in use.



When we first came to Maui in 1983, rental car companies would not allow their cars to be driven on the Hana Highway.  Now, thanks to tourist demand and improvements to the highway have been made, the estimate is that well over 1/2 of the cars that you see on the Hana HIghway are rental cars.

We were approximately 45 minutes from the start of the Hana Highway when we left our hotel.  As we approached the highway we filled up our car with gas, bought some snacks and installed the Gypsy Guide app on Myra's phone.  It cost $5 and provided us with turn-by-turn guidance, stories and safety reminders. 

Once we were on the way we soon understood why the highway is such an attraction.  Yes, the roads are curvy and you need to drive very defensively, but the scenery, waterfalls and lush plants almost overwhelm you. 



The only real way back to our hotel, unless you want to go off-road, was to turn around and drive the Hana Highway back to where we started.  On the Way back the Gypsy Guide app provided additional information on places to stop to see and also provided us with wonderful stories about the history and people who lived in this beautiful part of Maui.  We obtained some sand from a black sand beach and our day ended with a beautiful rainbow.



We arrived back at our hotel at about 5:00 pm, had a light dinner in our room with Ralph and Donna and retired early.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Easter Island - Day 1

Image
T his morning we arrived in Easter Island!  It was great to see land. To get to the island we had to be tendered from the ship as there is no deep port.  We were extremely concerned that we would not be able  to get off of the ship because the swells were bad.  We have read that many times, passengers are not able to get to the island for that reason. Fortunately, we were given the go ahead by the local authorities and our captain to go ashore. The tendering  process went like this:  - arrive at 7:00 to get our Passports to take ashore    - receive our cards that designated our assigned tender  - wait until almost 9:00 to receive clearance to go ashore  - board our tender around 9:20  - arrive on land at approximately 10:00  - hand in our clearance forms to the local agriculture authorities  - purchase our $80 per person Park Passes  - meet our tour group The actual tender boarding was very difficult ...
Read more

Papeete

Image
We docked in Papeete early in the evening. Papeete is the capital of French Polynesia, and primary center of Tahitian and French Polynesian  commercial, industrial and financial services.    The urban area of Papeete had a total population of 136,771 inhabitants at the August 2017 census.    This was a major change from the small islands and villages we visited in the last few days. As predicted by our Catamaran captain in Raiatea, the weather that greeted us in Papeete was different than what we had experienced in the other islands. The other islands weather was mixed but we always got both sunny and rainy portions of the day.    Papeete forgot the sunny part.    If we had not known better, we would have thought we were in a monsoon. The four of us had booked a hotel room at the Intercontinental and had imagined having a lovely day of hanging out by the pool, site-seeing and a leisurely dinner before having to go to the airp...
Read more

Papeete to Maui

Image
In the South Pacific many non-residents have become familiar with the term the Indonesians use called "Rubber Time"  Rubber time refers to that culture's rather laid-back attitude about appointments, schedules and deadlines.  While not as wide spread in many of the other South Pacific Islands, we can vouch that the Tahitians have adopted at least their own version of Rubber Time. We first encountered it in the Intercontinental Hotel where there really appeared to be no real effort to speed up the check-in/check-out process.   But we did face it head on in the airport. Fa'a'ā International Airport requires that passengers arrive at the airport three hours in advance of international flights.   We now know why.   The check-in process is Rubber Time.   Simple tasks like checking luggage takes at least twice as long for an attendant to perform than on any airline we have ever seen (except maybe Bolivia).   If a passenger needs a wheel chair, the de...
Read more