Road to Hana lava tube

Today we woke up at around 8 and then faffed around until about 10, when we left the apartment to search for breakfast and start our drive to Hana.

We ended up getting cold brew and a muffin from a local food truck. We then started driving towards Paia, which is a cute little town with many shops and restaurants. We had a lox bagel there at a café. That wasn't enough so we stopped at a vegan food truck a few minutes later for a brown rice mochi waffle with fruit and macadamia cream, because they were out of jackfruit, and a "tonic" of matcha and mushroom powder. It was noon by the time we actually hit the road.

The road to Hana is a scenic drive, a famous tourist activity in Maui. It is a popular ~100km route along a windy road all along the coast of the island. There are many waterfalls, one-lane bridges, and food stands to stop at along the way. Despite being warned that it was a slow, crowded, full-day trip, we rarely had to wait for the bridges or traffic and spent only a couple hours of drive time each way. We had no cell reception the entire day.

An attendant waved us past the first and most popular waterfall, Twin Falls, since the parking was full. We came back to see it on our return when it was less crowded.

Our first tourism stop was to pull over by a small grove of rainbow eucalyptus trees. These shed their bark in strips so colorful they look painted.

The second attraction we stopped at were Haipua'ena Falls, which dropped into a pool with a rope hanging over them from which Guy swung and jumped. Onlookers laughed at his Tarzan ululations.

Upper Waikani Falls was a trio of more waterfalls we stopped at along the way. Good pictures were difficult to take because every place was overrun by tourists swimming.

We stopped by an unattended fruit stand, which could be considered a primitive vending machine; you put a dollar in the bucket and take two bananas. Honor system based. The local bananas are small and dense: pretty good.

The Hana Lava Tube was our destination and final stop before heading back to Kihei. There were big signs at the entrance promising "NO BATS", or perhaps asking us to leave our bats outside if we'd brought any. It is a cavern formed by layers of flowing and cooling lava as they descend downhill. The lava creates unique textures as it flows and changes form, and there were golden flecks along the ceiling from primordial rock-eating bacteria. There were disappointingly no bats to be found. We hid in a cavern that bent off the end of the accessible tunnel and turned off our lights to surprise people that came up there: we made faces at them, flapped our hands, and said, "Bat!" The place closed at 4pm but we had time to also solve a plant maze they had on the grounds.

Rather than continue the short way to Hana town with nothing exciting to eat we turned around and drove back, now with ample time to stop at coastal overlooks for photos. Sadly most of the food stands along that road close by 4pm so we didn’t get lunch or to eat any more until Paia.

We stopped at Mamma’s Fish House in Paia, an historic Maui restaurant which insists on valet parking and books three months out but were able to seat us at the bar almost immediately. It's a large, airy wooden structure open to the breezes, inspired by a restaurant in Tahiti. We ate a starter of shrimp in crispy wonton wrappers. For a main course we shared a plate of tropical fruit flavored Ahi. Guy had a rum lime daiquiri, Leia had a mocktail and a piece of chocolate pie. This ended up 50% over our previous most expensive dinner. Guy got just enough signal to read about half of their travel blog on their website while waiting for food.

From there we continued to more casual second dinner at Paia Fish Market. The meal consisted of a generous portion of blackened snapper with rice and potatoes for $30.

Then we drove home to rest before waking up for an early snorkeling tour to Molokini crater.