La Perouse Bay, known to our family as 'the old lava flow', is definitely worth checking out! As you may know, Maui was formed by two volcanos - the now extinct Mauna Kahalawai (West Maui Mountains) and Haleakala, which you will find labelled as both active and dormant. I'm not sure how a volcano can be active and dormant at the same time, but there you have it.
You take the main road through Wailea and just follow it to the very end. You drive through Makena and through wilderness and brush, along the ocean, past beautiful mansions... the road will get narrower and narrower and you will probably think to yourself, 'I must have missed it'. No - keep going! When you are almost there, you will be surrounded by broken up chunks of lava on either side of the one lane road. Once through that, you pass a ranch on the left and the road ends with a parking lot on the right next to the ocean. I encourage you to get out of the car and hike around in the old lava field next to the parking lot. It is really cool, and it is free!
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| hiking around in the old lava rock at La Perouse Bay - you CAN do this in slippahs (flip flops) |
Some say this last lava flow occurred in 1790, but according to Andrew Doughty's 'Maui Revealed - the Ultimate Guide book' (5th edition, page 135), it could have occurred 300 years prior to that in 1490 also. Incidentally, this is a great guide book, I highly recommend it - look for it on Amazon, your friendly neighborhood ABC store and even Costco! Labels: Maui to-do, volcano
