Maui Photo Album - October 2008
Saturday - Road from Hana & Home
Hiking to Fagan's Cross
Saturday morning, we woke up just before sunrise. Our cottage at the Hotel Hana Maui was so comfortable, but the night before, the staff told us about a 25-30 minute hike up to "Fagan's Cross" so we decided to do it - thinking it would be a good place to see the sunrise. The Cross seems to have been placed as a memorial to the first person to develop a hotel on the property. I (Becky) didn't know, but Matt had read in the hotel's literature that the hike up to the cross was considered a "good cardiovascular workout." I thought it would just be a leisurely stroll - which it definitely was not! Oh well, it turned out to be great exercise, and the view from the top of the hill was excellent.
The hotel's grounds are lush and beautiful, with flowers like this everywhere.
I think this is a variety of the "bird of paradise" flower.
These yellow flowers were growing over the archways on the hotel property.
The sun started to rise just as we started our hike.
This is the view from near the base of the hill.
We made it to the top. Here's Matt as we reached the top of the hill.
There's a large area on top of the hill (which I think would be great for Easter sunrise services, by the way -- and apparently you can drive some cars up there when the gate's open). The hill gives a nice view down to Hana Bay.
Pretty white flowers were planted around the cross.
Looking further inland, there were rolling hills and cattle fields.
I think I've seen this same plant in pots at our local home centers. I don't think the versions here ever get quite that colorful. Amazing!!
Hotel Hana Maui
After a nice hot shower (and, oh, what a good shower it was -- this hotel has so many things going for it) we had breakfast at the Hotel (included in our room rate). The dining room overlooked the grounds and sea - perfect!
We originally planned to get an early start out to the O'heo Gulch, but decided to just take it easy instead - enjoying the fantastic hotel. After breakfast, we collapsed for a nice nap back in our cottage.
This was the breakfast appetizer platter. The semi-circular shapes on the lower right are "Dragon Fruit." There's also macadamia nut coffee cake, two kinds of melon, star fruit, and a luscious orange jam.
I'd gladly go back to this hotel any day. :) If we return to Maui, we think that we'd choose less expensive accommodations in the Ka'anapali area, and use the savings to spend two days at the Hotel Hana Maui.
Hana
Hana's Protestant church
And the Catholic church just across the street.
Hana's Aloha Festival
Saturday just happened to be the day for Hana's Aloha Festival. It seems that Aloha Festivals are kinda the Hawaiian equivalent of the small-town homecoming parades and county fairs I grew up with. A parade went thru town, ending on the baseball field, where a royal court was gathered. Princesses & their escorts (ranging from teenagers to moms & grandmas) came on horseback, each representing one of the major Hawai'ian islands, bringing gifts to the royal court. The entire event was beautiful with flowers & colors of the islands, and had a great rustic small-town feel to it. You could tell that most people knew each other and were glad to see each other -- yet didn't mind that outsiders joined in their celebration.
Here's one of the floats - featuring hula dancers from Hana High School's freshman class.
One of the princesses & her escort. Each princess wore a color to represent one of the islands, and her horse was decked out with a huge flower lei featuring the representative flower for that island.
Wailua Falls
We left Hana and continued on the road along the coast, out towards the O'heo Gulch. There were lots of waterfalls, plus gorgeous views to the coast (that is, when we weren't watching traffic really carefully!).
Seeing all of these tourists was a strange contrast to our time in Hana. This part of the road was crowded with tour busses.
'Ohe'o Gulch
Here's Matt at the area where the 'Ohe'o Gulch stream empties into the ocean.
And, here's Becky. Yeah, it was windy.
Matt - behind him you can see a few of the waterfalls that make up the "more than 7 not-especially-sacred pools."
Here, too, you can see a few of the pools. They were closed to swimming that day due to high water levels.
This is the opposite view - looking down towards the ocean from a bridge over the gulch.
We took only about half of a trail leading to the larger waterfalls. After our hike to Fagan's Cross (and a generally long week) I wasn't up for the entire trail - but we did get some great views into the lush green gulch.
Three Bears
We finished up at the 'Ohe'o Gulch and headed back thru Hana and back around the island. Apparently, at some points in the past (and hopefully again someday) you could drive past the Gulch and get back to "civilization" - but not so much anymore, since part of the road is washed out. So, we backtracked on the same road we'd driven on Friday. We didn't stop too much - wanted another shot at the delicious banana bread, but the shop was closed. We did stop at one waterfall we'd missed (no parking on Friday) - Three Bears (aka Upper Waikani Falls).
You can see why it's called "Three Bears" huh?
Heading Home
The sun set just as we were finishing up the Hana Highway. We had time for dinner and last-minute shopping before getting on the red-eye back home. It was a great trip - we'd love to go back!