« Road to Hana (Maui) | Main | Hana Pt.3 Blue Pool, Botanical Garden »


Sep 14

Hana Pt.2: Quest for swimming

Travel

When we read the guidebook more closely, we found that Hana doesn't have a lot of beaches (the big beaches are all over at the resort touristy area) and the ones here are mostly small and un-swimmable. But they have very unique beaches here. Since we were desperate for a 'vacation' feeling right away so we got up at 6 am to start our quest to look for a swimming destination.
DSC00991.jpgDSC01004.jpg
Left The very $$$ ocean front resort; A Red Sand Beach that we can't figure out how to get down to (doesn't look swimmable anyway).
DSC01009.jpgPicture 018.jpg
Our first quest is to hit the natural pools. We followed the guidebook's instruction to crawl over a barb wire fence with an 'no trespassing sign' (which the guidebook told us to ignore) into the wild grass, passed this strange Portugese Bread Oven in the middle of the field, and hiked down the hill...
venus.jpg
Found the Venus Pool!!! It is so gorgeous~~ but there's no way down!!! Seems like you can only get down there by 1) diving, 2) rock climbing gear. What a disappointment....we can only admire it from the cliff.

DSC01019.jpgDSC01011.jpg
More views of Venus Pool. Later my friend told me that the water level is usually much higher, so you can just climb down from those white rock on the left and touched the water right there.
DSC01032.jpgDSC01040.JPG
A beautiful waterfall~ The Hana Highway is full of waterfall sights.
DSC01044.jpg
Our next quest for swimming: Seven Sacred Pool in the State Park. After 10 mins of hiking to this destination, we saw the 'closed' sign! Apparently the water level is too high in this one. It looked safe to me. The water seems murky and brown anyway. Still dry...so disappointing. It's beautiful though.
DSC01050.jpgDSC01052.jpg
We drove along the coast and came upon the Black Sand Beach. The black sands were form by the lava rock, it looks like ashes~ The waves are way too strong and no one's swimming so we didn't either...
DSC01047.jpgDSC01053.jpg
There's a Fresh Water Cave on the beach.
DSC01055.jpgDSC01065.jpg
DSC01056.jpgDSC01061.jpg
Crazy lava rock formation inside~~~

Freda | September 14, 2006 03:03 PM


Comments:

Now whenever I tell people about Maui, people who went before would give me a 'we're both survivors' glance and asked "did you drive to Hana too?" ^^;;;

Afterall It's US tourist land, as bad as it sound the road condition is still very good, and most drivers were polite.

Those guys in the picture were just asking us to take photo of them.

Freda | September 16, 2006 05:32 PM

What an ordeal just to find a place to swim...^^;;
The Venus pool is so beautiful! But even if you could get yourself down, there is no way you could get back up...

The guys in the pic are your friends?

seat | September 15, 2006 09:33 PM

The Venus pool is of a very tranquil kind of blue, pretty! That little... er... animal is very cute too. I admire you gals' gut to drive through a bumpy & dangerous path to this place though ^^;;

RP | September 15, 2006 08:21 AM