On the move

We left our AirBnB in Haiku around 9:20am, giving us just enough time to make it to the farm tour at Maui Plumeria Gardens near the airport.

We were greeted by the owner, Doug Brunner, who has more than 400 plumeria trees on his property.

Doug gave each group a five-gallon bucket to carry with us, and then we strolled around the entire farm; Doug named each of the varieties of plumeria he was growing, told us the story behind some of them, and encouraged us to pick as many flowers as we wanted to take home. Some families filled their buckets – we were more restrained.

He also gave us some seeds and instructions for getting them through Agriculture Inspection at the airport and how to plant them when we get home.

I couldn’t keep up with the stream of the names of the varietals, but I did manage to photograph most of the them. Here are a few of my favorites.

It was a very interesting, aromatic, and colorful tour – if you’re on Maui, I highly recommend it.

There was one catch, though…Doug told us not to leave the bucket of plumeria in a hot car, so we (msotly Diane) had to schlep the bucket with us everywhere we went.

Our first stop after the gardens was the Maui Tropical Plantation, just down the road. It reminded me a lot of the late lamented Nut Tree outside Sacramento, complete with restaurants, historical exhibits, lots of shops, and nice landscaping. Unlike the Nut Tree, the plantation didn’t have an airport, but it did have a zipline. We had a pleasant lunch in their restaurant, Cafe O’Lei, and escaped the gift shops and farm store without buying anything.

We drove down to Kihei after lunch to go to the Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary Visitor Center. We’d driven past there on several past trips to Maui, but never while the Visitor Center was actually open (9-3, Monday-Friday), though they do have a number of outdoor exhibits that we’d been able to see. We had a nice conversation with the volunteer staffing the center; he suggested we go outside to look for honu (turtles) on the beach. I didn’t see any on the beach, but I think I saw some underwater a few yards offshore.

We had our first Maui shave ice of the year at Peace Love Shave Ice; then it was time to head for our home for the next seven nights, the Westin Ka’anapali Ocean Resort Villas North.

Yes, the plumeria survived the trip!

Bamboo Forest Trek (and much, much more)

Today was a very busy and tiring day. Our guide Kea from Holo Holo Maui Tours picked us up at 6:30am for a full-day tour of East Maui (their “Bamboo Forest Trek”, which includes a four-mile hike in the Kīpahulu District of Hāleakela National Park as well as a more-than-100-mile drive of the entire Road to Hana, the “back side” (where rental car companies don’t want you to go), and Upcountry.

Being picked up so early gave us the chance to see sunrise from the lanai at our AirBnB.

Kea picked us up right on time and we got into a nice Ford Bronco for our tour. Our AirBnB is just off the Road to Hana (Mile Marker 3, roughly) and I thought we’d go directly to Hana. I was wrong. Kea told us that we’d be doing the loop in reverse so we could do our hike before it got too hot…and off we went, starting with a drive through Upcountry Maui. There weren’t many stops during that part of the tour, but that was OK; it was largely familiar territory to us, and I didn’t take any photos there.

The map below shows the rough path we took after leaving Upcountry, beginning near Makena towards the bottom of the map.

From Upcountry, we drove along the Back Side for a couple of hours until we reached the entrance to the park.

Volcanic Remains
Molokini Crater
Kaho’olawe (The Target Isle)
Haleakalā High Altitude Observatory
Kepuni Gulch
The Big Island in the distance
Manawainui Gulch

There were a few hikes to choose from in this part of the park. We did the Bamboo Forest Trail up Pipiwau Stream to Waimoku Falls and back; it took us nearly two hours to hike up; the hike back was 40 minutes shorter (and had many fewer stops for pictures).

Map of the Kīpahulu Valley Biological Reserve in Hāleakala National Park
Ready for our 4 mile hike
Our guide Kea
Makahiku Falls
Giant Banyan Tree
Hau flower
Two waterfalls, no names that I can find online
Bamboo Forest
First glimpse of Waimoku Falls
We may be a little worse for wear
Waimoku Falls
Bamboo Forest
Ice Cream Bean

After we finished the hike, we drove the rest of the Back Side to Hana, where we stopped to pick up lunch and make an emergency sunglass repair at the famous Hasegawa General Store (they didn’t have an eyeglass repair kit to sell us, but they had the right screwdriver to tighten up the glasses…for free!).

Back on the road near ‘Ohe’o Gulch
Wailua Falls
Hana at last!
Capt Sam’s, vendor of yummy fish

We were finally on the famous Road to Hana (the “Front Side”). Our next stop was Waianapanapa State Park to eat our lunch and visit the famous Honokalani Black Sand Beach. We could have swum there, but we were too tired!

Honokalani Black Sand Beach (in Waianapanapa State Park)
In Waianapanapa State Park
In the lava cave in Waianapanapa State Park
In the lava cave in Waianapanapa State Park

Our next stop was Hana Farms to enjoy the scenery and pick up some pineapple banana bread for tomorrow.

Pink Pineapple at Maui Farms

We still had two hours and lots of beautiful scenery left our our tour. There was even another swimming opportunity – we stayed dry.

Pua’a Ka’a Falls – you can swim there! (we didn’t)
Koa Trees
Three Bears Falls (Upper Waikani Falls)
Wailua
Wailua Taro Field
Ke’anae (visitors not wanted)

Roadside Rainbow Eucalyptus

In the end, we had a 12-hour tour with Kea – and it was a great day out. I’m glad I didn’t try to drive the Road to Hana myself – not that the driving seemed that terrifying, but rather that I was able to see and absorb the scenery instead of watching the road. We probably wouldn’t have done the Bamboo Forest hike on our own, and we definitely wouldn’t have learned as much about East Maui as we did today.