Hawaii: the road beyond Hana

If you are going all the way to Hawaii you might as well see a couple of islands.

So there we were ~ having hardly caught our breath from the Volcanoes National Park on the Big Island ~ moving on to the Gauguinesque scenes on beautiful Maui ~ dazzling Maui ~ gorgeous Maui ~ we want to go again soon Maui.

Maui is so lovely that old surf-boards come here to dry out and seek their final rest ~ as this picture taken “up country” shows. Charles Lindbergh, the famous aviator is buried at the far end of the island.

In Maui you either drive up ~ toward the sky ~ or down ~ toward the sea. Urged on by travel guides, we drove the Road to Hana ~ eyes half closed with fear. The town of Hana, an intersection with a general store, is only about 50 miles from the airport but the journey takes about four hours, as the road is very winding, very narrow and passes over 60 bridges, 40 or so of which are only one-lane passages.

The road beyond Hana takes you to Lindbergh’s grave site ~ sort of. Here the road is legally closed (as the big sticker on my rental car contract pointed out) but there is no warning or barrier. We just drove on and on and on in ignorance. This is real white knuckle stuff. Mountains on one side - beach and surf on the other. The signage should have given it away: dangerous road, no shoulder, livestock crossing, falling rocks, waves ashore, washout ahead, wild pigs and return here. The only ones missing were: pray now and imminent death.

We did turn back (although locals say you can drive the whole island) and finally found Lindbergh’s lovely grave site under a huge banyan tree in a quiet church yard overlooking the vast, blue Pacific. It was worth the drive.