Big Beach

This is one of the more remote beaches on south Maui, called "Big Beach". It was originally called Oneloa Beach, but became very popular with the hippy crowd from the mainland in the late '60's and early '70's, who dubbed it "Big Beach". Many set up squatter type camps here but were finally cleared out when Hawaii declared the beach part of a state park in 1972. Today it's a popular site with Boogie Boarders. The sand was the goldest sand I have ever seen and the water was turquoise.

Black Sand Beach

This is the Black Sand Beach at Wai'anapanapa State Park (say that 10 times fast!). The black sand was formed when lava flowed into the sea in this area, shattering on contact with the ocean water. The resulting fragments were pulverized by the waves over hundreds of years to form the unusual black sand.

Northwest Coast Region

Maui's Northwest coast has no significant beaches. It is mostly high cliffs with a very rocky coastline. This is an extremely windy area as the air coming in here has been blowing, uninterupted, for several thousand miles over the Pacific Ocean. It is said in travel books that this is the cleanest air in the world.

Haleakala Crater

Like all Hawaiian islands, Maui was formed by volcanos. Luckily, all volcanos on Maui are now dormant (unlike the Big Island, where volcanic action is still underway). The main volcano that formed Maui is called Haleakala and is 10,323 feet high. We were able to drive to all the way to the summit on an extremely winding road. Once at the top, you can peer down inside the Crater. It looked like we were on another planet. The rarified air up there at the summit made for tough breathing.

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Waterfalls

There are hundreds of waterfalls on the island, primarily because of the huge amount of rainfall the island gets. The other large volcanic mountain on Maui, Pu'u Kukui, is one of the wettest places on Earth receiving over 360" of rain a year. The rainstorms stay mainly in the center of the island near the mountains. We didn't have one rainy day at the beach the whole time we were there. The waterfalls were really scenic - like something you'd see on a postcard.

Road to Hana

One of the "must do" items on every Maui tourist's agenda is to drive the famous "Road to Hana" This is a 54 mile long stretch of one and two lane highway with over 600 hair-pin turns that snakes it's way through the highly tropical, rain forested Northeast coast of the island. This drive has waterfalls, tons of lush tropical vegetation (often covered with brightly colored flowers) and awesome views of the Pacific Ocean.

Fish

The Maui Ocean Center has a great setup where you can view the sorts of fish found in the surrounding waters.

As with all vacations, they must come to an end.  Our 429 Mustangs had served us well, but now the time had come for John and Dan to turn them in and head back to reality in Michigan :-(

Aloha!