Day 8 and 9 and 10! Oh and 11 and 12! sorry disconnected.. all good! Arrived at Maui!

Day 8: Today we arrived at Maui. After picking up our fancy color jeep for these few days we had a quick breakfast at a local place before we hit the road. We started with a road called: death road. 15 km road known as very very dangerous! Many single tracks and coming from our side: to the right are just cliffs and sea. It was gorgeous! Some good stops on the way. One was the blow hole. I cannot image that some people really fell in that hole and died..

At the end of the day we paused at a little paradise like beach. And there was a monk seal on the beach! How lucky was i to see that again! 

We went back to car and drove our last few miles passing also the ‘horror’ place Laihanna. Where the terrible fire was just a few months ago and many people died. The place was sealed and the road was detoured around it. Sad sight. All black and gone..😔

Our first night we would spent at a Tentalow. Really funny little kind of safari tent on the beach. We ender right in the middle of a large family gathering. Like 30 people.. lots of drinks, campfires, BBQ, even an outdoor cinema they made..🫣. We also had an outdoor shower! We enjoyed that one, watching the stars!

Day 9: In the morning we had a quick Breakie and headed up the volcano. Yes another volcano. This one is called the Haleakala. We planned to a trial, but were not sure yet which one also depending on how long time all was going to take getting to the start and weather.

Once up there around 3200m, we decided to just hike and return at a certain point. As we wanted to be back before sun set at 17:45. We started at the summit. Like being on the 🌔 again! So special an beautiful up there. Seeing the crators. The different colors of earth, the rare plants up here and a blue, blue sky! And us of course! We started slowly our hike. We met a few other folks and one lady recommended strongly to proceed with the hike to the other side of the valley of the volcano and try to get a hitch hike back up again to the summit. So we checked our energy levels (Rene mentioned it was only down…😔😲🫣), our water and food. And we were still all set. There we went. A full 19km hike against some time pressure before the sun set. It was an amazing hike!! The last 4km were only up and way up.. it was a strong incline! But really cool.

On way we saw a runner and when passed us again i asked him for a ride. He agreed immediately to bring us back to the summit. 
 

Sun set was also breath taking and freezing cold again.. we had our little bottle of bubbels 🥂 to enjoy the moment.

And once the sun was gone we rushed down the volcano again. We had a little quick stop for checking on some green turtles nestling on the beach 🐢.

And for a dinner in a surfers town.  This night we had to stay for a few hours in a hotel as we were not on time to get permit for camping ground. Which was a real pity as we had to come up before sun rise again up the volcano. 
 

Day 10: started with an early alarm at 04:00 am. To get packed again and drive the whole way back again for the summit. We made it on time and watch the magical moment of saying hello to the sun! What a start of the day! Now we could start our Road to Hana journey. Which supposed to be an adventurous road again with many single tracks and a lot of natural beauty in between along the shore line of the other side of the island Maui. 
 

The road was not that adventurous compared to the road of ☠️. But still beautiful. The points of interest were unfortunately almost all closed. So not that much to see or enjoy (no private pools or waterfalls that close). Which was a bit disappointing. I was not feeling that well that day and i was nodding off in the car all the time. Rene was driving and showing off his skills. Late lunch was a delicious pizza which was also our dinner 🤪 
 

We arrived early afternoon at our camping ground where we would stay for two nights. It was a nice camping ground in the state park of the volcano. We set up the tent and we went to bed early.. like before 18:00. We tried to watch a video in the tent, but soon fell asleep. We both needed it. 

Day 11: Early rise for the Pipiwai trail to a waterfall and some ‘hidden’ pools. We had a blue sky above us and we were almost the only ones hitting the trail that early. The bamboe forrest was special and the waterfalls in between as well. Of course the large waterfall was closed of again as were the pools 😞. But it was a nice trail and good exercise for the morning.

We took our lunch with us and once done hike we went to Hamoa beach. A little special black sand beach with some locals for riding the waves. We relaxed there for a few hours and enjoyed the ocean and the sun. We closed the day with having dinner at Hulei Hulei Chicken at Red Sand! And we got spoiled with the food and the view on a beach again. 
 

Now we could go back to our camping site with a full tummy! 😋 We had an early night again and had to get up early to pack the tent and drive back for at least two hours to the airport. During the night it stormed a bit. Lots of wind and rain. 
 

Day 12: early rise for packing and driving to airport. We drove the road FROM Hana. This road was actually way more beautiful as the road TO Hana. We enjoyed every km! Now at airpor and ready to fly to our next Island Kaua’i. Where our main attractions will be: a three day hike on the Kalalau trail.. ⛰️