Maui - The Road (less traveled) Back from Hana

We asked a local if the road at Kaupo was really unpassable. Our map says that "the road is closed here due to a strong earthquake in 2006 that made the road beyond here unpassable." We heard that the bridge was out. This is the road that rental car companies always tell you not to drive. As it turned out, we were told that there was just a pile of rocks on the bridge purposely put there to prevent tourists from driving this road. I can see why now!

We had to put our Jeep in 4WD once to get over the rock pile. There was one other daring car that made it over the pile just before us - and they didn't have 4WD - not sure how they made it but they did. We traded off being in the lead with this other car throughout the excursion. There were severals spots where the "road" wasn't really much of a road, fallen rocks in the way, pools of standing water at least two feet deep, honestly a little scary for my tastes but Cory was grinning ear to ear. We stopped now and again to make sure the other car made it through.

We're glad we didn't heed any of the warnings - this side of the island was so beautiful and peaceful (since we were 2 of 4 people on the road - we literally didn't see another soul). The rolling pastures on the south eastern side turned into canyons as we came closer to the south western volcanic side. There were many ranches and a few homes along the way and it was open range everywhere. It seemed to take forever before we came to a real highway - about 2 hours - but we estimated that we still saved a good hour by not going back the normal way. We came across the real highway just as the fog rolled in and the sun went down. Phhewww!
I found one church along the way - believe it or not! St. Joseph Church (1862) in Ekomo Mai. They hold services every other Sunday.