We got up early to take the trip across Maui on the road to Hana. It is a very slow drive on a narrow winding road. We stopped along the way at every interesting spot, where we could find parking. Although the road wasn’t extremely busy, parking spots were very limited at some locations, even though we thought we had gotten an early start.
Our first stop was at the surfing beach at Hookipa Beach County Park. As we entered, the viewpoint parking area had a huge sign declaring it “Hawaiian Kingdom Land”, and a number of people there, so we didn’t bother to park. Instead we continued on down to the lower parking lot, where there were many surfers. It is a one way street, and when you come to the end, a sign which says “No Left Turn” to get back onto the highway. Since there was no traffic, I ignored the sign, otherwise it would be a long drive back along the highway to find a place to turn.
We planned to stop at the Twin Falls area and walk in, but there was no parking available. So we drove on, stopping at a few of the small streams and falls along the way, and other viewpoints. We pulled in to Kaumahina State Wayside, which has a very short trail to a lookout over the harbor towards Keanae Point.
We went in to the Keanae Arboretum, and spent about 45 minutes there, looking at all the trees (labelled) and plants on the small 6 acre grounds. We also stopped to look at the taro plantation at Keanae, and next stopped at the Wailua Valley State Wayside, which looks out inland to the valley, and seaward over the village and the ocean.
We stopped for lunch at Puaa Kaa state wayside, where there was a very tiny falls on a stream, and a swimming hole. After lunch we continued on the very much more twisty part of the road towards Hana. One of the nicest stops along the way was at Waianapanap State Park, a drive in off the road of about a kilometer. There is a beautiful black sand beach, and the blue water crashing surf against the black rock of the old lava flow.
We didn’t stop in Hana, since there doesn’t seem to be much there. We did drive by the General Store. On the way in we thought it wasn’t open, it looks like such a dump. However, on our return we did see that there were many people there. However we didn’t stop.
The farthest point of our trip was to Koki Beach Park. There was huge surf here, again on the black lava rocks, though the beach is regular sand. Enid decided to go swimming, and walked in about 100 m before she decided that it was too rough and came back out. We saw what could have been a disaster. There were two little girls with their mother out in the same area as Enid. When we got back to our car, a male surfer and another man and a woman in a wet suit were leaning on our car, and talking to each other. We were just about to leave when the woman, who had moved back across the road towards their volkswagen micro bus called to the male surfer, “there are three kids in trouble!”
Sure enough there were three heads out in the surf being swept out to sea in very rough water. The man sprinted down the beach, he paused to look at his surfboard in the back of a halfton, then ignored it and got into the water very quickly. By this time the people were screaming very loudly. The other man who’d been leaning on our car, who also looked very fit, had by now run to the water, and several other men with surfboards were making their way to the scene. The first man there was the one who’d been talking at our car, and he got one of the people (we believe it was the mother who had been trying to save her two children) to swim back to shore. Together with the other surfers they gathered up the children.
We were going to go on further but after just a few hundred meters farther we came to a stop light, where they were controlling traffic as the road was under construction. Instead we headed back towards Hana and home. As we got back to the original beach, an ambulance with paramedics was now on the scene. As we drove back we met two police cars, and then finally a fire truck. I was impressed with how quickly they got to the scene, but if the surfers hadn’t of been there, I am afraid that it would not have been quickly enough to save the children.