Day 2 in Maui continued - Southeast Maui Past Hana (Kipahulu)

As I said earlier, after the Road to Hana, you can go either of two ways: you can go back home the way you came, or you can go in a loop around Southeast Maui and get back to where you started. I recommend the latter as you'll pass through the Seven Sacred Pools, and a couple more waterfalls, but by no stretch is it an easier drive than the Road to Hana.

But here we go, heading back...

From what I've read, Venus Pools seemed like a nice place to stop at, though it's supposedly a 10-15 minute hike, and at this point, we were pretty tired, and the idea of any type of hiking didn't sound so great. 

We did, however, stop at Wailua Falls (Mile Marker 48). A very nice waterfall with a pool below. Right before we stopped here, the rain was coming down pretty hard, but started to clear up in a couple minutes.

Getting to the pool is obviously doable, but it wasn't easy either.

Finally, at Mile Marker 42, you arrive at part of Haleakala National Park which has the 'Ohe'o Gulch aka Seven Sacred Pools. Because of the rain, the water in the various pools looked a little murky and also due to the rain, the park was prohibiting swimming in the pools.

Last waterfall we stopped at was Alelele Falls (Mile Marker 39). This one required following a trail to the waterfall. As we walked on, turns out there really wasn't much of a trail, but we followed a path that would start, then disappear, and continue on. After close to 10 minutes, we caught a glimpse of a huuuuge waterfall.  

The path died, and in order to reach it, we had to cross the knee deep stream. I attempted to do so, when I slipped on a rock in the stream, in my flip flops (great idea) and stubbed my toe pretty badly. At that point, it started raining really hard, and we decided to head back. Walking back, my toe was in ridiculous pain, and bleeding. I took a picture of it for you blog followers, but I think I'll hold off on posting it haha. Long story short, we never made it to the waterfall.

You can sort of see a path in these trees.

The point where I attempted to cross was probably a bit further upstream from here.

After some of the nicer stops, you drive on unpaved road for maybe close to 20 miles and when it is paved, it's rough pavement. The lanes for the most part are pretty small as you'll see in some of the pictures.

And that's a small car...

Some expansive views of Haleakala.

About 10 hours after starting the Road to Hana, we made it back to Kahului, where we ate at Da Kitchen Cafe. Great food, and not overly expensive. We tried to fried spam musubi and one of their specialty loco mocos. This stuff was good, but before we left for home, we got some food to go and I had the Garlic Shrimp Fried Rice. Probably my most memorable dish of the trip. It was awesome, though I have no pictures.

Anyhow, that was the second part of our trip to Hana. All in all, we left Ka'anapali (West Maui) around 6:30 AM. It takes a little over an hour to get to Mile Marker 0 on the Road to Hana. We made it Da Kitchen Cafe in Kahului probably about 5:00 PM. Even after the rough drive through Southeast Maui, I'd still recommend it. I think some of the more expansive views would have been nicer too if it wasn't such a cloudy afternoon.

Up Next: My first time snorkeling