Maui The Road to Hana

Jurassic Park

waterfalls to the ocean

Pandennis tree roots, difficult to get through!

Lots of rain - big trees!

Our yurt

This island is really 2 volcanic cones poking above the sea with a low lying, flat, fertile area linking them. A road runs all the way round the northernmost crater, but the southernmost, The Haleakala Crater is so steep on one side that the road often slips into the sea and is unsafe. We started our tour on this road to Hana, the most Southeasterly town on the island. The road winds up and down along the cliff face so much that it can take up to 4 hours to drive the 45 miles. There are steep drops into the sea with waterfalls by the road coming from the heavy rain falling on the 10,000 feet high crater. There are spectacular views with the road sometimes dipping down to a black sandy beach. The film Jurassic Park had it's opening sequence made on this coast as it has such an unspoiled, primitive look. Hana has many Hawaiian traditions that have died out in other, more accessible towns. There is a paddle canoe club, with outrigger canoes they take out of the bay to the ocean with currents that would carry them to Antarctica if they did not know how to steer and control the canoes. Cooking often uses traditional foods like breadfruit, papaya and taro. Taro is easily grown and the root crushed into a rich protein and carbohydrate paste called poi which was the staple diet of the early polynesian settlers. Not many tourists come to Hana and there is limited accommodation, we slept in a yurt, a circular tent copied from the mongolians of Asia! This was on a  cliff above the beach. There was plenty of rain during the night and we hoped the yurt would not fall into the ocean!