Sherry Felix – port4u

We set out before dawn to drive the Road to Hana. Marc did well taking the curves in the dark. The views were spectacular and the drive was an adventure. It was lovely to catch the sunrise with the clouds.

We use the Loop Road to Hana Audio Driving Tour | Self-Guided Audio Tours (shakaguide.com). I learned a lot about historyof Maui from the tour. The stops were all described well and in advance. The car’s connection to GPS is used to regulate the tour. The music was a little kitsch and the narrator over exuberant, but I enjoyed it. From Pai to Hana is ~64 miles. It took us about 16 hours to do the whole loop with stops. I left out the garden of Eden for another day. The Hana Highway (HI-360) has 620 curves and 59 bridges. After that the 38 mile long Piilani Highway is a road with bad reputation in HI (dangerousroads.org). The sharp hairpin curves of the 2 roads often terminated at a one lane bridge by a waterfall (on the wet side of Maui). Check it out on Google maps or Google Earth Pro to see all the curves. Hana Highway changes name to Piilani Highway in a gulch just before on the Alelele Falls on the southern tip of Maui. The ruler Pi’ilani began building a roadway to encircle the entire island Piʻilani – Wikipedia

The waves at the Ke’anae Peninsula were spectacular. The colors blue, aqua, black, and green are stunning.

The Ke’anae Peninsula was created from an immense lava flow originating from Haleakala Crater. Legend has it that a Maui chief ordered the building of Ke’anae peninsula into farmable land. Workers hauled, by hand, soil from the valley above to fill in the entire area. On April 1st, 1946 a tsunami wiped out the entire village. There was an 8.6 earthquake that originated in the Aleutian Islands chain off the coast of Alaska that caused a 100 ft. high tsunami near the epicenter in the Aleutians, but it had lost most of its energy and was 35 feet by the time it hit the Ke’anae Peninsula. In 1946 and there wasn’t any such thing as a tsunami warning system in the Pacific at the time. Tragically, 20 children and 4 teachers were pulled out to sea. A positive outcome from this tragedy was the development and implementation of the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center. (from Visit Keanae Peninsula | Take Hana Tours to Keanae Maui (tourmaui.com)). Also see Visit Keanae Peninsula | Take Hana Tours to Keanae Maui (tourmaui.com)