Day 12. Maui

We covered a lot of ground today after an early morning start. Several stops were made along the Hana Highway to look at waterfalls. Falls we stopped for included two small ones at Pua’a Ka’a State Park, Wailua Iki, Haipua’ena Falls, and Upper Puohokamoa Falls. There were several other waterfalls that we passed up along the way… there is a lot to see on this road.

Since we were relatively close to Haleakalā we decided to drive to the 10,023 ft summit. Unfortunately, the mountain was socked in with clouds and we couldn’t see much of anything. We decided that tomorrow morning we’d get up early and take in the famous sunrise on Haleakala, which would be a unique way to celebrate Christmas.

After heading back down the mountain and checking into the Maui Seaside Hotel in Kahului we headed over to the west coast to do some late afternoon snorkeling at Palauea Beach (aka. White Rock). Unfortunately, my snorkeling mask malfunctioned and so I didn’t get a chance to do any snorkeling. However, Janel reported that the visibility was rather poor with few fish, so I didn’t miss much. The waves here were small but were fun to do some body surfing on.

For supper we got take-out at Da Kitchen and went to bed early in anticipation of an early start to Haleakalā in the morning.

Pictures from today can be found here.