Hawaii Vacation 2000

Chapter 6: More Kauai

January 31: Helicopter, Waterfalls, Sunset

However, we had decided that for once we would try it. The rate is $149/person for a tour that lasts almost an hour. If our presence was resented, at least we were in good company. Lots of people take these tours. Similar tours were available on most of the islands we had been on, but only here on Kauai did we feel that there was so much to see that could only be seen from a helicopter.

So we had made arrangements yesterday to go up in a helicopter this morning at 8 AM. They asked us to please be there by 7:30, and of course we had no trouble doing this, because we had been going to bed and waking up early all vacation.

These helicopters hold a pilot and 6 passengers. The company sends up two at 8:00, so twelve passengers should have been there, but at 7:30, there were only us and two others. In fact, the remainder didn't arrive until almost half an hour later. They all had the same explanation... they had not expected the traffic to be so bad. We counted ourselves very lucky that we had found a motel right near Lihue, so that we did not have to face the morning rush of commuters into Lihue.

So we were off to a late start, but finally we got going. Here is a picture of our helicopter, just before we entered. It is an A-Star helicopter operated by Will Squyres Helicopters.

So we boarded the helicopter, and took off, heading immediately over nearby Nawiliwili Harbor, and continuing west over the southern part of the island. We were flying over familiar ground here, and easily spotted the tree tunnel on the road to Koloa and Poipu.

Before we went as far as the Waimea Canyon, the pilot flew inland and showed us some smaller and lesser known canyons that we hadn't realized were even there. Fortunately, the helicopter's glass windows were not too bad for photography, and we took these pictures right through it. These falls have no caption, because we don't know what falls they are, but they are in the interior, within a canyon on the south side of Kauai, and not close to any roads.

Continuing west, we entered the Waimea Canyon. We already had good pictures of this, but the helicopter went lower into the canyon than we did on the road, so we had a view of the canyon that was slightly different from this angle. We took one picture that shows what appear to be sedimentation lines, but which are actually volcanic lines (one for each layer of lava added by a different eruption).

Then we flew out over the Na Pali coast, and went into several of the remote valleys, including the Kalalau Valley. Here, the sun caused glare that made some pictures impossible, but we did get a picture looking into one of the valleys while the sun was blocked by the top of the cliff. We're not sure exactly where this was taken, either, so again no caption.

To help you understand what this flight was like, here is a view of the cockpit from the left rear seat. At this point we are approaching the Na Pali coast from the ocean side. Everyone had headphones on, to reduce noise. The pilot sat on the right in front, so his head is the prominent one in this photograph.

When he turned the helicopter around, we could take a picture of the Na Pali Coast from the left side. Compare this picture with the one we had taken earlier from the Kalalau Trail. There is no question that if an area is accessible on foot, it is a far better experience than flightseeing.

We continued our tour by flying east to Hanalei, and then up the Hanalei Valley. We had been in the broad, flat bottom portion earlier, but the upper part of the valley is inaccessible except to backpack hikers and helicopters. Far up this remote valley are Hanalei Twin Falls, and the helicopter gave us a great view.

Next we flew into the center of the island and into the crater of Mt. Waialeale. This was the most amazing part of the trip. the walls of the crater are nearly vertical, and luxuriant green because of the 460 inches (average annual rate) of rain that falls here. We must have been lucky, because it was sunny at the moment. It was like entering the "Lost World." We understand that this scenery was used in the making of that and other films. In fact Kauai is the location of many famous films, with perhaps "South Pacific" the most well known. It was filmed in the Hanalei Bay area.

We finished the tour by returning to Lihue over Wailua Falls and the Wailua River. These are accessible by car, so we planned to investigate them after the flight. At the end of the flight, we felt that despite the expense, we had had our money's worth.

Our next trip was a short ride from Lihue to Wailua Falls. These falls are pretty, and because they are so close to Lihue, and easily accessible, they receive a lot of visitors. The disadvantage of these falls is that there is little else to do there. So we took this picture and moved on.

The next place we wanted to see is Opaekaa Falls (pronounced O-pike-a). We drove up the highway to just before the town of Wailua, and turned onto route 580, Kuamo'o Road. We stopped at Opaekaa Falls and took this picture. While we were there we found a white bird with a long white split tail soaring like a tern along the cliffs across the way, and we tried to get a picture of it using the telephoto lens. It never got close enough, and eventually flew away. Our bird book allowed us to identify it as a White-tailed Tropicbird, a native Hawaiian water bird, known as Koae locally. It was a big disappointment that we missed this picture.

We continued farther up the road after the falls, and came to the Keahua Arboretum. Beyond here, the road is four-wheel-drive only. We stopped and took a hike in the arboretum. This arboretum was severely damaged in a hurricane, so it is not as popular as it used to be.

Just before we had come to the Arboretum, we had noticed a trailhead along the road for a ridge trail. So we drove back to the trailhead and began our final hike of the vacation. We had one picture left on the roll, and we figured we would use it this evening if the conditions allowed for a better sunset picture than yesterday. So as we climbed up this ver gradual ridge trail, we didn't take any further pictures. We had Mt. Waialeale on our left, and it was very pretty. We met a group on horseback, and we hiked farther than we expected. Rather than end, this trail joined with another one, and we followed that one through the woods for a while, before turning around and returning to the car the way we came.

We decided that we definitely wanted to try one final time to get a sunset. It was our last chance. We went to Poipu Beach instead of Kekaha, because it was closer. First we went to "Spouting Horn" where the waves are channeled by rocks to produce a blast of air and spray our of a hole in the rock. This was pretty cool, but not as impressive as the coast around Waianapanapa State Park in Maui, where one could walk for miles and see this kind of thing all along the coast.

The western horizon was much less cloudy than yesterday, so we were hopeful of seeing a good sunset. We found a spot near Prince Kuhio's (known as PK's, locally) where there was a beach facing the impending sunset. This portion of the beach was very rocky. We had plenty of time, so we walked on the rocks and inspected the tidepools, finding all kinds of different sea life, before returning to prepare for the sunset photograph. We decided to break out the emergency roll of film, rather than trust our final picture to it, so we had practically a whole roll of film to dedicate to this sunset. It had better be good!

As we sat on the wall looking west and waiting, we saw a group of surfers to the south who evidently planned to continue surfing until it was too dark to see. Behind us was a restaurant, and diners there were also enjoying this view.

It was now clearly going to be a spectacular sunset, so when it began, we started snapping pictures like there was no tomorrow. We took 20 pictures of this sunset, and show here the best five.

For dinner, we drove to Kapaa Town, and found Norberto's El Café, which is reputed to have the best Mexican food on the island. It was well-deserved, and perhaps the best Mexican food we have ever eaten.

February 1: All Good Things Must End

The Menehune are legendary "little people" who allegedly lived in the Hawaiian Islands before the invasion of the Polynesians. This fish pond was supposedly built by them. It was built at an oxbow of the river, and a wall was constructed to keep adult fish from leaving the pond. The wall is now overgrown with Mangrove trees, and is being broken down by their roots.

From there we drove by some sugar cane fields. As we past them, we disturbed many flocks of small red birds. These birds are Strawberry Finches, a species that was introduced from southeast Asia. Later, just before turning in our rental car, we found the Ahukini Recreational Pier, near the airport. Natives come down here to go fishing, but few tourists come. We walked on the pier, and looked down into the waters below, feeling a bit sad that we would now have to leave.

We took an inter-island flight to Honolulu, where we connected to our red-eye return flight to Detroit. We arrived back in Detroit sleep-deprived at 6 in the morning on February 2. When we got back to our home in Ann Arbor, we had to shovel snow in the sub-freezing temperatures that are typical of Michigan in February. Steve took this picture from inside the house of Steffi out shoveling the front sidewalk. She is partly obscured by an Ash tree.

The contrast with Hawaii could not have been more stark.

Return to srw's home page (picture tab) to see other vacations.

[Intro] [Oahu] [Volcano] [Hawaii] [Maui] [Kauai 1] [Kauai 2] [Index]