It rained again in the morning, but mainly just a sprinkle at 7am. After breakfast, we set out on the Hana Highway toward Haleakala National Park. As it was before 10am, most of the Hana day trippers hadn't yet arrived. The road was quite narrow and winding for the last few miles, with no dividing line and lots of blind corners. But since traffic was minimal, it only took us about 35-40 minutes to get to the park.
The parking lot wasn't even half full when we arrived before 10:30am. It rained briefly as we prepped, but it stopped quickly.
Then we did the
Pipiwai Trail to Waimoku Falls.
After the hike, we stopped by the small visitor's center. It has a few displays about the vegetation and the native Hawaiians who lived here. It also has a small gift shop with books and shirts for sale.
As we left, we noticed that the parking lot was full, and even the overflow lot was nearly full. Although most of the traffic was now going in our direction, there were a few straggler cars coming in the opposite direction, causing the drive back to be much slower. We all had to inch along and stop evey so often to make sure we could pass each other on the narrow road.
Eventually we made our way back to the Hasegawa General Store, where we picked up a few supplies. Then we stopped at another roadside vendor for some more banana bread, then returned to our rental house. It almost immediately proceeded to start raining, just a bit before 5pm. It was a short rain, as usual.
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