Maui Part II

It was raining pretty bad on Wednesday morning. One of the hotel guests decided to use one of the swimming pool floats to float in a giant puddle on the hotel grounds. We decided to check out the Maui Ocean Center after breakfast. Because of the rain we were expecting a lot of people to go there so we decided to get there as early as we could and were there shortly after 9 am. We all bought ponchos since they were only $4 each and we figured they'd come in handy, though it turned out later that we had the worst of the rain behind us. Katie looked pretty funny though in her poncho, it was pretty long on her. Katie had a great time.









 

When we got outside at the Maui Ocean Center the rain was already almost gone. So after our visit we decided to drive north and stop for lunch at the Flatbread company in Pa'ia. This organic restaurant uses local ingredients. One of the pizzas we bought had goat cheese from the Surfing Goat farm. We saw the stone oven where they baked them, they were really good! Pai'a is supposed to be a very hippy town but we didn't really see anything that looked that hippy-esque. After lunch we drove on and started on the road to Hana. We knew we probably wouldn't make it all the way to the end but that was fine. We just wanted to drive around a bit and see some pretty sights.

The first stop was at Ho'okipa Beach. This is one of the most famous surf spots on the island. I didn't expect to see any though, as it was raining pretty hard and there was a fierce wind, so I figured it might be too dangerous. But there were several people there.







We then drove on and before long the windy road to Hana started for real. There were several sections with narrow bridges where only one car could pass at a time, so we had to look ahead to make sure no-one was coming. Katie fell asleep despite the fact that the road was so windy and we had to go left and right and back and forth. We stopped at a spot I had found in the Maui Revealed book where I could see the Lower Puohokamoa Falls. I had to get out of the car and onto a muddy path. It was a bit slippery so I didn't go too far, but I still was able to get a pretty good view.





Here is a good view of the Black Sand beach and the windy road.



And this is a good view of the shoreline on the road to Hana. We drove to about the 17 mile mark and then we turned around and drove back the same way we came. When we got back to Ho'okipa Beach the sun was shining there and we stopped for a bit to see the surfers again.