Tag: Road to Hana

Do you want to camp in Maui? Well you can’t. But you get around that law.  Simply tell the police who come by your tent and tell you to leave that you are fishing. Then it’s ok to spend the night. If you don’t want that much worry, you can head down the Hana Highway to Wai’anapanapa State Park and the black sandy beaches. It’s ok to camp here once you reach it.

Our Road to Hana tour guide, Jack the Legend, gave us about 50 minutes to hike the half mile trail to the beach or lookout points.

I stopped to take pictures with Manny.  Carol and Glen toured on, and when I looked up, they had disappeared. I thought they MUST have gone to see the Lava Tube, which looked to me like the most interesting doable of the choices.

If you are looking for the perfect spot to pitch your tent my advice is to avoid the lava tube. I followed these legs into the tube. The legs did not belong to either Glen or Carol.

Walking carefully to avoid turning my sandals on their sides in the squishy rocks, I stumbled through entrance.  Sniffing around I didn’t smell anything particularly noteworthy to report, even though my other senses should have been heightened because vision was somewhat impaired. After adjusting to the dark, I glanced around to find Mr. and Mrs. ET.

I couldn’t believe they weren’t there, so I perched Manny up higher to take another look. He came up with the null set as well.

You can see that this little room housed several visitors scouting out possible camp sites for the next visit. Waves lapped the entrance of the cave, but brought no crabs, starfish or other sea critters. Natural food would be no more plentiful for us here in the warm waters of Maui Hawaii than it is for the whales.

The lava tube features a lovely skylight.

The black-sand beach was created by a lava flow several hundred years ago.  A local warned us that it’s bad luck to carry away the sand, so if you are camping, be particularly careful to clean off all adhesive sand from your tent inside and out.

Manny checked out the rocky comfort level. He said in his returned Australian accent, “I’ll give this place a pass.”

So we got back on the tour bus and headed on down the Hana Highway.