September 5th - Part 2

The final major stop was Pipiwai Trail that takes you to the bamboo garden and the acclaimed Waimuke 400 ft waterfall. They claim it is a 4 hr hike (2 mile each way) because it is severe up or down hill over rocks/roots. Adam and I did it much faster...about 3 hrs round trip. We move pretty fast when we are on a mission...and it started pouring rain on our return and I wanted to get out of there before that bamboo decided to fall on my head!

here is what I call the 'kiddie ride' as we thought it was cool until we saw the real deal

The terrain to get the waterfall was not too bad...mostly dirt trails with lots of roots and rocks a lot of which are in place to prevent the entire place from being a mudslide. We wore our running shoes for this one so relax..sigh! Along the way you go through the bamboo gardens which were super cool. Here are some pics

Ok, so here's the main event. The 400 ft water fall Waimuke. It was TOTALLY worth the hike!!!

It is required at all tourist attractions, per the locals, that you do the 'shaka' hand motion...so i HAD to do a 'double shaka' when we FINALLY made it to the waterfall. And here is Adam AGAIN breaking the law.

After the waterfall hike we hiked a short 15 min to the 7 pools, fully known as Ohe'o Gulch Seven Pools. This was cool but nothing compared to the waterfall so we kind of rushed through it. It's basically a waterfall that collects in 7 separate areas that don't get hit by waves and thus they are pools that people swim in. We were soaked from walking an hour back from the waterfall in the pouring down rain that we were not really up for a swim.

We hauled-ass on the way home only stopping once for a slight motion-sick moment (no puking!) and bathroom break so that we could make it to our dinner reservations. Hana is so big now and slightly commercialized that you can't make it out in less than 3 hrs so we had to call and cancel. We ended up eating dinner Longhi's again because neither of us wanted to be in the car to drive some where else. It was ok. Here are some pics from the way out...

September 5th - all this beauty in one very full day

Today Adam and i drove to Hana. I took NUMEROUS bonine (dramamine sub) and actually made it not only all the way to Hana but several miles past to Waimuke Falls (400 foot waterfall) WITH NO VOMITING!!!NOTE: Locals currently HATE tourist being on Hana Hwy and have even gone as far as to paint over mile markers that denote major sites or to black out signs with pertinent info such as ' one way bridge', 'restrooms', 'scenic lookout', etc. It's actually quite dangerous without correct signage. The good news is that it has NOT deterred any tourist, the bad news we all wonder around in circles asking each other where the 'sites' are...the double bad news is that in the one way portions of the road the locals DO NOT STOP for on-coming traffic. We were ok outgoing as we 'hugged the mountain the whole way"; but the way home was super scary as we were on the cliff/coast side and these people just push through space or not! One couple told us that a local tried to charge them $125 EACH to see one of the waterfalls, claiming it was his grandma's property...WHATEV!!! In everything that I have read the beaches and water ways are owned by the PUBLIC in which case this guy was just an ass trying to take advantage of a tourist- which by the way, is his livelihood. Luckily, they didn't pay him but needless to say it is NOT the Hana Hwy mom and dad took us on as kids!!!!  The road to Hana was beautiful but treacherous as EVERYONE who has been on it knows but we saw the MOST AMAZING things today. please see!!!

Keanae Arboretum - most amazing, unusual flowers you have seen in your life:

Keanae Pennisula - not only an amazing location but great banana bread (yes, I even ate it as it had NO NUTS!). What is crazy is that on the other side of the parking lot where we parked to take these pics is a KIDS BASEBALL FIELD!!! Can you imagine playing b-ball where if you hit a home run it went into this???

Check out the hibiscus! They grow wild here in EVERY COLOR you can imagine. I LOVED the pale pink!

After Keanae we saw a waterfall on the way to our next major stop. It was NOT accessible from a trail so we climbed LITERALLY over a shack (as in I stepped on the roof to get to the next foot hold) to get to it. There was a deteriorated sign saying 'private property, no trespassing' but of course that did not deter Adam. He was over the shack before I even put my running shoes on! It was pretty cool...here are the pics. In Adam's defense, note that others were there.

Next stop was the red sand beach at Kaihalulu which is just past Hana. The interesting thing about this stop was that it was on the Hana "must see" list published by the Grand Wailea hotel but it is marked as private property; no trespassing. Of course, to Adam that is an invitation to keep going so here you go...we hiked about 10 min over dangerous cliffs (some points no foot holds only roots to cling to by hand!) IN FLIP FLOPS (gasp!) to get to this one but it is a gem! We went swimming here but the bottom was ungodly rocks that tried to tear up our feet. Both of ours are so thick skinned from our lifestyle that it didn't deter us too much. If you swam really close to the rocks the tide on the other side of the coral reef would create a 'draft' that would pull you like a lazy river right along the reef in a safe distance that you didn't bump the reef. All the locals were doing it as well as some not so smart tourist. I'm not so smart sometimes, but not completely dumb, so I 'allowed' Adam and I to try it ONCE and I couldn't enjoy because I was just waiting for the big wave that crashed one or both of us into the reef and scared our faces for life so I quit after the first go...daredevil, yes...but a light-weight daredevil!