Waterfalls on The Road to Hana

When planning the driving trip for The Road to Hana I realized this would be a great opportunity to see some Waterfalls.  As advertised, this road trip was full of over 600 turns, but we made it without having to pullover to, well, "feel better".

According to our guidebook, our first waterfall was at MM 11.5 and we found the bridge and the turnout mentioned.  It then said that the waterfall we were looking for as a short 30 second walk.  To our surprise, we found an old historic cemetery instead!!

This really got us worried that our planning was for not, but thankfully we found out a bit further down the road that we were actually on Hawaii Hwy 36, not 360 which is the fabled Road to Hana.  Doh!!  Soon thereafter (MM 2) we saw the pullout for the most popular waterfalls on the trip, Twin Falls, but our plan was to see them on the return trip due the expected crowds that would be there.  Finally, at the real MM 11.5, we found Haipua'ena Falls as advertised!!

There was much more than waterfalls on this trip – so much beauty to see such as Honomanu Bay around MM 12.

At MM 17, we veered off Hwy 360 and made a short visit to the Ke'anae Peninsula where we got to see the Lanakila Ihiihi O Iehova O na Kaua Church.  Well... AFTER we bought an incredible $6.50 load of banana nut bread from Aunty Sandy's Banana Bread shop on the way – YUMMY!

We also saw a bunch of lava rocks with water splashing over them!!

Between MM 22 and 23, we stopped at Pua'a Ka'a State Park to see the Pua'a Ka'a Falls.  It has an upper section that you can see best from walking up the hill where the picnic tables are.

The middle section is seen best from the west side of the bridge and then a lower section that starts underneath the bridge and does not offer much of a vantage point.  The reviews were pretty brutal on this waterfall, but I thought it was nice.  Also, plenty of folks were enjoying a nice swim in the upper section's pool; some even went "Survivor Style" (i.e. stripping down to their underwear to go swimming).

MM 24 presented us with the very beautiful Hanawi Falls and we got to watch a couple of folks jumping into the splash pools.  Yep, NOT for me!!  The upper section was nice ...

... but the real treat was the lower section!

From this point, we drove all the way to "downtown" Hana by way of a quick drive through Hana Bay Beach Park.  I put the quotes around Hana because if you ever went there you would know that while there is technically a "business district", we are really talking about a few food trucks and some brick-and-mortar restaurants.  We opted for a nice lunch at Hana Ranch and would recommend it to anyone who finally reached the end of the line of this road trip.

Well... the "end of the line" really is only HALFWAY through your road trip since you have to backtrack the 600+ turns to get out of this remote town.  I didn't know there where places in the US where people actually lives that I couldn't get cell service!! 

Wai'anapanapa State Park is at MM 32 and presented itself as beautiful just getting to the parking lot.

A beautiful view of a hidden cove presents itself after leaving the parking lot.

At its center is a very popular black sand beach.

So much more beauty presents itself by just following the path.

AND LAVA TUBES!!!

The only bummer was that the water wasn't activating this park's famous blow hole, but we got to see a bunch more of the famous black lava rock shoreline.

I decided to not stand in the middle of the bridge at MM 25 to see Makapipi Falls, but capture it the best I could from the east side of the bridge.

Upper Waikani Falls (Three Bears Falls) between MM 19 and 20 was so crowded on the way to Hana that I absolutely had to stop and get some pictures on the way back, despite the rain that was falling.  This was one of the prettiest falls on the trip.

Coming back to the start of the journey I got out of the car one last time at MM 2 to see Twin Falls.  Check out the crazy fella taking a HUGE jump into the plunge pool.

The lower falls were very pretty, too!

There are MANY other Waterfalls on The Road to Hana, including the closed Seven Sacred Pools, and I'd love to hear about ones that others who took this journey were able to see.  Additionally, there was just so much beauty and since I focused on the falls so much, I'll leave you with a small indication of the color you can see along the way on this awesome Hawaiian road trip.