Following our long and busy day at Haleakala National Park we decided to have a few leisurely days, and by leisurely I mean beach days.

We visited two beaches, one we’d seen on a previous walk, Polo Beach, and Makena Beach which was a bit further down the coast. It was lovely and hot so we spent most of the time in the sea.

The Maui Country Band

The one thing that has been a bit lacking in this trip is live music. As you probably know our regular holidays are centred around music (e.g. Nashville) so it was somewhat of an unexpected and welcome surprise when we found out that a local country band was playing in a local gardens area nearby.

South Maui Gardens, which was only a short drive from our apartment, was a real hidden gem in the town. Not only is there lovely grounds to explore, but there is also an array of food trucks down one end and a stage area for live events.

It was such a nice evening which started in the sunshine and ended under the stars. You basically bring and set up your chairs in front of the stage and then sit back and enjoy the music, whilst sampling some of the local food on offer. What was even better was it was all free which made a nice change.

The band were brilliant, interspersing their own songs with covers, and they played for 3 hours. It was a definite highlight of the week.

Maui Brewery

Our week in Maui would not be complete without a trip to the Maui Brewing Co. We had already sampled some of their beers in Oahu, which is home to a few Maui Brewing Co. bars, but this was the actual brewery where the beer is made. It had a great selection of beers (more than in Oahu obviously as they had many guest beers available as well as the normal menu) and the bar itself was was spacious with a lovely outdoor section. Not sure we’ll have time for a second trip before we leave so we made sure we sampled as many as we could 🙂

The Road to Hana

According to all the guide books this is THE most famous scenic drive in all of Hawaii, and all about the journey rather than the destination. It’s a very slow, narrow and winding road, with a number of “blind turns”. There are about 600 turns and 57 bridges to cross so it does get pretty dicey. A lot of the bridges are one lane too so you have to be careful.

The map below shows the route, but don’t be fooled by the 2hr 44 min timescale. It takes a lot longer as you are driving very slow and giving way to other cars across bridges. Plus the point of the trip is to see the amazing scenery and sights along the way so you do a fair amount getting out the car and walking about. Some of the sights are on the roadside whilst others are at the end of a trail head.

We had our own private tour guide in the car with us too who narrated our journey and told us exactly where we needed to stop and what sights were there. And before you go thinking we had some random stranger in the car, it was actually an app called ‘Guide Along’ which is basically an audio guide you download to your phone. It knows exactly where you are at all times through GPS. It’s so clever and was really helpful. We nicknamed our guide Bill. As well as providing information about where to stop and what to see, what to just drive past, where to take photos, and he also gave us a lot of history of the island too especially on the long return journey.

There are a lot of waterfalls along the way, a feature which is in abundance in this area due to the constant changes in elevation and amount of rainfall. Again, some can be seen from the roadside and others require a hike. Below is just a selection.

There were also nice beaches/bays to stop off at, as well as maintained gardens and an arboretum. The below is us at the Garden of Eden Arboretum. As you can probably tell from the photos there was rain! But there were also some great views and interesting plants. The eucalyptus trees with the rainbow coloured trunks and the 100yr old mango tree were some of my particular favourites.

Here are some of the coastal sights and some other interesting sights, along the way.

Once we’d made it to Hana (you don’t really stop in Hana itself as it’s a very small local town with no amenities or sights), we drove an additional 30 minutes drive to get to the other district of Haleakala National Park. We’d previously spent a day at the summit section of this park. This part was totally different to that as this was more like a tropical rainforest with luscious plant life and amazing waterfalls.

We did a 4 mile hike, the “Pipiwai Trail” which takes you to an amazing 400ft waterfall – Waimoku Falls. The trail follows a stream through the forest, passing a giant Banyan tree, then there’s a boardwalk section which goes through a bamboo forest, before you make your way to the highlight at the end.

There was also a much shorter 1 mile loop where you saw the ‘Ohe’o Gulch, also known as the Seven Sacred Pools.

We headed back after these walks and didn’t get home until 6pm. Seen as though we left the apartment at 6:30am, it was a very long and tiring day.

It’s our last day in Hawaii tomorrow before we head to LA on Wednesday for our final week. More from us then.

Lucy