North Carolina

*Alliegator and Tarheels*

Tarheels - Yes, Mama's Fish House was perhaps one of the BEST restaurants I have ever been to. Amazing. I am sooo upset that I ate so much that there was no room for dessert ;)  Everything was fabulous. Ally - We hated the Road to Hana. HATED IT. We dubbed it the Road to Hell. I dont think I have ever LITERALLY feared for my life like I did on that road. I wasn't blown away by what we saw, either, a lot of it was driving through vegetation. Anyway, the lanes are extremely narrow, it almost feels like driving on a two-lane road that's about as wide as a one lane road back here. There were sooo many blind curves and hairpin curves, where I was so scared another car was going to come flying around the curve and hit us head-on. There were a lot of places where there is a sign that tells you to "yield to oncoming traffic" because the road becomes so narrow only one car can go through a certain section, but SO many cars (coming from the opposite way) just blew through the sign when they were supposed to yield to us coming through that section. We almost got sideswiped several times. THEN, it was extremely stressful because all the locals coming through would ride your tail and honk if you're doing the speed limit (15MPH), and there's hardly anywhere to pull over, so you gotta start worrying about where to pull over to let these morons through, so you cant concentrate on the scenery during those moments. Some of them would pass us, even though you're not supposed to. At one point, one guy passed (on the left) about 3 of us cars going the speed limit, it was nuts. After passing through Hana, we chose not to turn around and go back the same way we came, so we continued, and wound up on this unpaved narrow road that wound around the cliffs, in the pouring rain, for like 3 hours. I have never heard DH cuss that much in his life, and he is NOT a cusser. We were like, I wish someone had warned us it was like this. If I had known it was like that, I would have spent the day on the beach at our hotel. Then again, some people LOVE it, it just depends on your preferences. Also, if you easily get carsick, the trip is not for you.

Re: *Alliegator and Tarheels*

  • edited December 2011
    PS - We used the Maui Revealed book to try to guide us to all the places to pull over on the Road to Hana, all the little "secrets" but we found that a lot of them had been blocked off with barbed wire fence with No Trespassing signs (guess the landowners read the book too), OR we couldnt find the pulloff. The author describes so many pulloffs as: 'It's 3/10 mile after mile marker 14, near a telephone pole.'  Uhhh, ok. We missed a lot of them because they were impossible to find.
  • alliegator8alliegator8 member
    1000 Comments
    edited December 2011
    Wow, I am so sorry you had a bad experience with it.  After Hana is rough, very narrow roads.  I should have remembered to mention that to you.  I was scared, but thank goodness my dad was driving and not me.  The driving wasn't that great.  But all the little stops along the way were what made it really neat: the black sand beach, the botanical garden, the 7 sacred pools, and the Charles Lindbergh church on the cliff.  So we were getting out of the car a lot.  Were you able to get out and see any of it at least?
  • alliegator8alliegator8 member
    1000 Comments
    edited December 2011
    Just saw your second post.  The stops are the best part of the road to Hana.  I'm sorry you missed so many!  I forget the name of the audio guide we had, but it was really good.  If you ever do go back and want to try it again :) I can get the name for you.
  • edited December 2011
    OH, haha, I thought you hadnt gone yet, so you were asking how it was... anyway, we stopped at the botanical gardens, which I loved, but the beaches, and all the other stuff, the infinity pools (which we really wanted to see), we didnt get to see because it was pouring. :(   We stopped at the Halfway to Hana, though, to get some banana bread, which was really good. heh heh. :)
  • edited December 2011
    Haha...yeah, I too could've warned you about road to Hana...sorry!  I did like it, overall.  My problem was it was just too freakin' long...I got bored, honestly.  And yeah...I literally forced myself to split a dessert when we were there b/c I couldn't NOT try something.  I had about 2 bites of some banana souflee thing but it was amazing.  Seriously, I was just blown away by that entire meal and the unbelieveable view!Anyway, glad y'all had a good time!
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