Hawaii - Jeff Campbell [300]
Shopping
For the best browsing, head to N Market Street, lined with antique, clothing and trinket shops. Be sure to poke your head into Brown-Kobayashi ( 242-0804; 38 N Market St), which has museum-quality Asian antiques and Bird-of-Paradise Unique Antiques ( 242-7699; 56 N Market St), stuffed to the gills with vintage Hawaiiana.
Bailey House Museum ( 244-3326; 2375 W Main St) The museum gift shop sells all sorts of island-made products from salad dressings and jams to wood-block prints and koa bowls.
Getting There & Around
Maui Bus ( 871-4838) runs free buses between Wailuku and Kahului hourly from 8am to 9pm. Wailuku stops include the state office building and the post office.
′IAO VALLEY ROAD
′Iao Valley is such a sumptuous sight that in ancient times it was reserved for royalty. Today much of the upper valley’s natural beauty is preserved as parkland, all reached via ′Iao Valley Rd, which ends at misty ′Iao Valley State Park.
Tropical Gardens of Maui
These fragrant gardens ( 244-3085; 200 ′Iao Valley Rd; adult/child under 8 $5/free; 9am-4:30pm Mon-Sat), which straddle both sides of ′Iao Stream, showcase a superb orchid collection, endemic Hawaiian plants, brilliant bromeliads and a meditative bamboo grove with a trickling waterfall. See if you can find the world’s largest orchid!
Kepaniwai Park & Heritage Gardens
This streamside county park (875 ′Iao Valley Rd; 7am-7pm), 2 miles west of Wailuku, pays tribute to Hawaii’s ethnic heritages. Sharing the grounds are a traditional Hawaiian hale (house), a New England–style missionary home, a Filipino farmer’s hut, Japanese gardens and a Chinese pavilion with a statue of revolutionary hero Sun Yat-sen. ′Iao Stream runs through the park, bordered by well-used picnic shelters.
At the west end of the park is the Hawai′i Nature Center ( 244-6500; 875 ′Iao Valley Rd; adult/child 5-12 $6/4; 10am-4pm), a nonprofit educational facility with interactive exhibits for young kids. For those over 10, more interesting are the center’s two-hour rain-forest walks (adult/child $30/20) that climb into an otherwise inaccessible wilderness.
At a bend in the road about half a mile after Kepaniwai park, you’ll likely see a few cars pulled over and their occupants staring off into Pali ′Ele′ele, a gorge on the right where a rock formation has eroded into the shape of a profile. Some legends associate it with a powerful kahuna (priest) who lived here during the 1500s, but today it bears an uncanny resemblance to former President John F Kennedy. If parking is difficult, continue on to ′Iao Valley State Park, as it’s only a couple of minutes’ walk back to the viewing site.
′Iao Valley State Park
Nowhere is Maui’s verdant beauty better captured than at ′Iao Valley State Park (admission free; 7am-7pm), where an emerald-green pinnacle shoots straight up from the valley floor. Nestled in the mountains, 3 miles west of Wailuku, the park extends clear up to Pu′u Kukui (5788ft), Maui’s highest and wettest point.
′IAO NEEDLE
This rock pinnacle snuggled sensuously in the deep folds of velvety mountains takes its name from ′Iao, the beautiful daughter of Maui. The 2250ft ′Iao Needle is said to be ′Iao’s clandestine lover, captured by an angry Maui and turned to stone. A monument to love, this is the big kahuna, the ultimate phallic symbol.
Whether you believe in legends or not, this place looks like something torn from the pages of a fairy tale. Clouds rising up the valley form an ethereal shroud around the top of ′Iao Needle. With a stream meandering beneath and the steep cliffs of the West Maui Mountains in the backdrop, it’s easy to see why this is the most photographed scene on Maui. Just a few minutes’ walk from the parking lot, you’ll reach the bridge where most people snap their photos of the needle. A better idea is to take the walkway just before the bridge that loops downhill by the stream; this leads to the nicest photo angle, one that captures the stream, bridge and ′Iao Needle together.
If the water is high you’ll see local kids taking bravado jumps from the bridge