Day Seven - To Hana or not to Hana...that is the question

Day Seven - we decided to venture on the road to Hana, a journey for only the brave and stong stomached! You see - the trek is not about Hana, it's about the getting there. It's a winding switchback road, often just one lane wide, but it is a beautiful drive full of waterfalls and other surprises.

We got up very early because we had to be out of our condo on this day so we drove to Kihei where we would spend our last night in a hotel. We were able to get one of our two rooms and thus unload our luggage there. Then it was off to Hana.

The roads are treacherous in some areas - especially on this day due to rain and cloudy conditions:

We stopped along the way to sample the ponds and waterfalls of this beautiful area:

We finally made it to Wainapapa Beach - which is the main black sand beach on Maui. It's an impressive site. The waves were strong and towering. The water was impossibly blue, even without the sun shining! The black sand was coarse and gritty - felt like walking on sand paper. But it was beautiful:

Until we saw that there was Man-of-War on the beach. I wanted to leave then, but the girls wanted to stay and risk it. Fortunately they didn't get stung, but as we were showering a teenage girl came up from the beach sobbing from the horrible pain of a sting. Then everyone realized how lucky we got! Here's a picture of the Man-of-War!

To answer the question about to go to Hana or not. We chose not. The journey is really about getting there, and I've been to Hana and there's really nothing to do there. So, once done at the beach, we turned around and got to the hotel about 5pm and crashed, we were all exhausted!