Maui Adventures

Maui is the next island up the Hawaiian chain from the Big Island and the second biggest. Laura and I decided to go there for our anniversary. We got a kamaaina rate for a hotel and car rental which is a special rate for locals. Maui is built on two volcanoes with an isthmus connecting the two. The western volcano, Mauna Kahalawai created the west Maui mountains and the eastern volcano is the younger, much larger Haleakala.

Of course, I wanted to do a circumnavigation of the island but there were two obstacles. The road around the western mountains was very narrow and dangerous in parts and the road around Haleakala was almost not even a road in parts. A lot of it wasn’t paved and there were huge ruts and potholes. Because of these conditions, the rental companies forbid driving all the way around the mountains.

The second obstacle was the game plan. Knowing our differences, we agreed on a course of action to satisfy both of our preferences. The first day we would explore for me and the second day we would just hang at the beach, play tennis and go to the pool for Laura. However, the island was too big to go everywhere in one day so I had to choose which side of the island to explore.

I had heard of a place called the seven pools where you could go cliff jumping near the town of Hana at the eastern end of the island. The drive was supposed to be spectacular too. So that was my first choice. We flew into the capital of Kahului on the northern side of the isthmus and went to pick up the car. A nice surprise awaited us. We had rented in the smallest category but they upgraded us to a Mustang convertible. So we drove straight down the beautiful road to Hana in style.

We spent some time at the pools which is a series of pools connected by small waterfalls and I engaged in my passion for cliff-jumping. Then it was time to figure out what to do next. Hana was a long way down the coast and I HATE going back the same way if there is a possibility of another. The only other way was to continue on the coast road all the way around Haleakala - the coastal road that the rental company forbid. Although Laura knew my abhorrence for returning the same way, she is not quite as adventurous as me and protested at continuing around. However, although I am usually a rule-keeper, I decided to chance it.

It wasn’t long before I was wondering if I had made a huge mistake. Laura knew I had. The paved road ran out and the ruts and potholes began to show up – and they were big! At times I had to navigate very slowly. Even then I thought I was going to break an axle at any moment. There was some beautiful scenery but we couldn’t fully enjoy it because we were stressed out with the touch and go nature of our excursion for a considerable distance.

We finally reached paved road again and I got out to inspect the car. I noticed that the right front tire was considerably flatter than it should have been but all I could do was continue until we found some gas station. As we were in the middle of nowhere, we didn’t know how far that would be and if the tire would hold up until we got there. We continued in stressed mode.

We did make it to a station and were able to inflate the tire to its proper recommended pressure and never had another problem with it the rest of our trip. So it was a stressful circumnavigation of Haleakala but at least we didn’t have to go back the same way and I got another adventure out of it.

The road around Haleakala didn’t connect to the south side of the isthmus where our hotel was so we had to drive back through Kahului to drive south to the hotel. On the way we took in another famous Maui landmark called the Iao Needle, a sharp ridge that looks like a spire when viewed end-on. The Iao Valley is where King Kamehameha fought a vicious battle to defeat the Maui army during his campaign to unify the islands.  

The next day when we woke up…it was raining. So guess what we did instead of hanging at the beach? I got to explore the western route around the West Hawaii Mountains, along cliff-hugging, one-lane sections with minimal guardrails, blind hair-pin curves, bottlenecks, prone to flooding and rock slides. If the internet was invented back then and I had seen all that, I may not have done it. But it wasn’t and we did it without incident. So I got to do what I wanted to do both days and Laura lost out.  

Road to Hana in a Mustang convertible

Iao Needle


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