Tag: black sand

Road to Hana

Every guidebook on Hawaii lists the Road to Hana as a must-do on Maui. Usually, they also warn you not to start driving late, so we set our alarms to 6 a.m. Still, we were not the first ones on Hwy 336, which makes things a bit… hectic. The road’s purpose was to connect smaller towns around the island and not to achieve a touristic target. This means: many one-way bridges, hardly stopping / parking possibilities at the points of interest and sometimes dangerous traffic situations. Also, some spots are difficult to catch, even with google maps app running, or they are on private property and are now closed for public.

Nevertheless, it was still a joyful ride to Hana and beyond. Waterfalls, rainforest, beaches, lava tubes and valley overlooks – it was worth the time, even though we didn’t even get out of the car in Hana as we gave up finding a convenient parking space.

  • How to park
  • Waterfalls
  • Black Sand Beach
  • Sea arch
  • Stay out!
  • Road to Hana
  • Lava stalactites
  • Waterfalls

Green Turtles at Black Sand Beach

On our way to Kona we stopped at Punalu’u Black Sand Beach to see, well, a black sand beach. Not surprisingly, the black sand has volcanic origins and one can still see the typical ripples on the bigger lava rocks.

Black sand from Black Sand Beach

It was also nice to observe several green sea turtles, in the water and ashore.

Green turtle on black sand

Next, we headed to Ka Lae (aka South Point), the southernmost point of the United States. (Key West is just the southernmost point of continental US). Teenagers demonstrate their courage by jumping either from the cliffs into the sea or into a blowhole and swimming through an underwater cave.

South Point – who’s gonna jump next?

Further plans had to be postponed due to the rain on the “almost guaranteed sunshine”-west coast of Big Island.