Trip around East-Maui, Saturday, May 14, 2005.

We went on a road trip around east maui, traveling counter-clockwise around Haleakala. The goal of this trip was to explore the Kaupo Road area early in the day and to hike at the Oheo Gulch, up to Waimoku Falls. Following are a few selected pictures of the trip.


Church along the Kula Highway, Upcountry Maui.
This church is clearly visible from Maui's Central Valley when the bright afternoon sunlight reflects from it.

Tree in full bloom, Upcountry Maui
We do not know what kind of tree this is, but there are many of them in Upcountry Maui. Their lavender-colored flowers are a common - and beautiful - sight along the Kula Highway this time of the year.



Kula Highway, near `Ulupalakua.
Here we are making a stop along a portion of the Kula highway, overlooking south Maui. The islands of Kaho`olawe and Molokini are seen on the left half of the picture. According to my topo map, this place is about 2000 feet above sea level.



This stone circle is near Nu`u Bay. We have driven past it several times on previous trips to Kaupo, but never noticed it before because it is somewhat secluded and we always drove past it late in the afternoon and when we were tired and in a hurry to go back home. Now that we drove there early in the morning, and paying more attention to the road, We were finally able to notice it.

We are not certain of the origin of this stone circle, but the absence of road markers and the fact that is not mentioned in any of our maps or guide books, makes us speculate it was not built by native Hawaiians, but more recently by locals.



View of Haleakala from the Black Sand Beach (Nu'u Bay) along the Kaupo Road.
We stopped at an unnamed black sand beach near Nu`u Bay. This is a view from the beach looking mauka towards the summit of Haleakala. Our trusty Geo Tracker looks like a tiny rover on an alien landscape.


A cave on at the black sand beach, Nu`u Bay, Maui.
A short hike from the Tracker took us to this cave on the back side of the beach.


The view from the shore shows the cave, the barely-visble Tracker and Haleakala. Picture taken at the unnamed black sand beach near Nu`u Bay, Maui.

Unnamed Black Sand Beach, Nu`u Bay, Maui.
At first I thought there was a jet airplane flying above, until we realized it was the roaring sound of the waves grinding the rocks against each other. Gwen suggested we name this unnamed beach "Thunder Rock Beach" ("Hekili Pohaku Kai"?)

Stone circles made by the locals at the black sand beach.
This is the Hawaiian equivalent of the crop circles. No alien mistery here, though.


View of the stone circles at the unnamed black sand beach, Nu`u Bay.



View of an old Church, near the town of Kaupo.



View of the south-east coast of Maui between Kaupo and the Oheo Gulch.

Waimoku Falls, Oheo Gulch, Maui. Sadly, the batteries of our camera died and this blurry picture is the only one I was able to take there.

The hike to Waimoku falls was a unique experience. We parked at the Haleakala National Park's Kipahulu Area and worked our way up the Oheo Gulch. The hike took us about 75 minutes, and it is uphill all the way, but the trail was only moderately steep and with lots of shady and/or relatively flat spots, making this hike surprisingly easy and pleasant. We hiked though a rich variety of landscapes, varying from cattle pastures with lots of guava and mango trees, tropical rain forest and a very thick bamboo forest that towered high above our heads into a cathedral ceiling of sorts, blocking most of the sunlight, making the trail refreshingly cool.

Several (official and unofficial) overlooks - as well as a couple of pedestrian bridges along the trail - offer great views of the canyons, pools and waterfalls of the Oheo gulch. For those of you who, like us, are brave (Or foolish) enough to disregard warning signs, a short detour on the trail takes you to the edge of a cliff that offers a truly magnificent view of the gulch, and of the ocean in the distance. This place is referred to in the "Maui Revealed" Book as "The Infinity Pool", which is a pool of water sitting at the edge of the top of a very tall waterfall. How high? Well, we dropped a rock to the bottom of the waterfall and using my chronometer, we measured 4.6 seconds for the rock to hit the water. Using the simple free-fall formula y = 0.5g x t^2, we estimated the cliff to be about 340 feet high! Of course, we did not have to measure the cliff to know that falling from up there would be a very bad thing, so needless to say we were very careful walking up there.

The "Maui Revealed" Book suggests people to swim in the Infinity Pool, but I would not suggest that at all. First, you really don't want to risk falling over the edge to a certain death, and second, for some reason, on that day the river bed was dry and the Infinity Pool was just a pond of stagnant water that did not look inviting at all. We explored some of the deep canyon mauka of the pool and were surprised to see that the river was not running through this section of the gulch, though we could hear water flowing upriver. We think that the bedrock at this location is so permeable, that all the water seeps under, only to resurface makai of the infinity pool. Obviously water does run though the canyon when the flow is large enough, as evidenced by the stagnant pools of water and mud. We left quickly and went back to the main trail, mainly because of my fears of deadly flash floods in the area.

The end of a trail is a big reward for the trip: Waimoku falls towers high above a U-shaped canyon. We do not know how tall the fall is, but I estimate it is at least as tall as the fall at the infinity pool, or about 300 feet. Again, we disregarded the warning signs about falling rocks (As did everyone else, if that is a consolation) and went to the bottom of the fall. A shallow pool at the feet of the fall offers cool water to refresh our bodies. A gentle mist from the waterfall kept the area cool and inviting.

After spending about an hour admiring the beauty and quiet of the falls, and after resting and having our lunch, consisting of turkey sandwiches, bananas and trail mix, we hiked our way down the gulch and back to the car.

For the rest of the day, we continued our way around East Maui, making a stop at Hamoa Beach, and then driving past Hana and back to town on the Hana road. Our last stop of the day was at Charley's of Paia, for beer and pizza, before we drove back home in Kihei and called it a day. Aloha!