Lava field walk

Friday 24 February
The day looked a bit “iffy” around our way in the morning, so we decided to try our luck further south, and headed to the Hoapili trail in the southwest corner of the island, basically the end of the road! This trail follows historic trails leading through the harsh lava from one of the last eruptions on Maui in 1790. The road deteriorates as you go along, but we made it OK, and took just about the last parking spot in the rocky parking area. It was an interesting and dramatic hike, following the coast, where you’d find the occasional small area of sand between the black rocky formations, as in my top left photo in my collage. Other coves consisted of bleached washed -up coral, providing a wonderful contrast with the black rock and turquoise waters. The top right photo shows some low walls built from the volcanic rock, remains of a native village Keone’oio. In one area we came across several black feral goats. The centre right photo shows some more of the lava flow coming down from the mountain. It was a fairly easy trail, in the sense that it was basically flat, but we were glad of our hiking boots with sturdy soles, and our hiking poles, to help keep our balance on the rocky surface. You really needed to watch every step, and stop, if you wanted to look around at the spectacular scenery! It’s not a trail that you’d really want to do in the middle of summer, as for the most part there is little shade. However you do go through a small wooded area, and on our way back we witnessed a narrow escape. We were following another couple at this point, and suddenly there was a loud cracking sound and a branch from one of the trees fell right between them, missing them by literally inches! If it had hit one of them on the head it could have been nasty, if not fatal! Other than that, it was an amazing hike. We just did about 31/2 miles return, but the trail continued further. When we’d finished our hike we retraced our route along the narrow bumpy road and returned to Makeena beach for a few hours, which we had visited earlier in our vacation.
Step count: 17,023