The Tide’s Perspective

The next morning, we joined a Hidden Valley Falls Kayak Adventure. This involved paddling two miles down the Hule’ia Stream through the Hule’ia National Wildlife Refuge, which protects a plethora of endangered bird species. This river was also used for scenes in Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark. While the water in the Hule’ia Stream is calm, the banks are unforgivingly filled with dense jungle growth making proper navigation a must. After a rough, uncoordinated start, Jason and I managed to keep our vessel away from those wild edges. One couple in our group did not learn as quickly and had unwanted bank encounters every few minutes. And yes, much cursing was involved in their frequent run-ins. The group went ashore and hiked through that packed forest to reach a series of small waterfalls and a pond with a rope swing. The waterfalls weren’t impressive compared to others viewed on our trip, but Jason did enjoy the rope swing. Unfortunately, our time at the pond was quite limited, less than promised, so I didn’t even get a chance to take a dip. Still, a cool outing.

After kayaking, we weren’t done splashing. We headed to Po’ipu Beach for some snorkeling. Here’s my take on Po’ipu Beach. The sand turns into rocky shelves and stabby coral very quickly. Those obstacles make it difficult to enter the water with fins on and painful to enter it without something covering your feet. However, the fish observing starts as soon as you can stick your head in, and there is plenty of ocean life in these shallow waters.

What I love most about snorkeling is that second when your face submerges, and the sounds of the waves and people talking on the beach instantly evaporate. A whole world appears beneath you, a world you were oblivious to just moments before. In that still realm, activity abounds. It’s a lesson on what we miss routinely in our surroundings due to our limited awareness.

I came across at least 40 fish in the limited time we spent snorkeling, possibly much more. Am I a fish expert? No. Is there a good chance I didn’t know what I was looking at? Yes, but I think I correctly identified a substantial portion of what I saw. There were humuhumunukunukuapa’a, coronetfish, Hawaiian sergeant, spotted boxfish, enenue, lowfin chub, Hawaiian parrotfish, wana (long-spined) sea urchin, lined butterflyfish, goatfish, and Hawaiian cauliflower coral. I viewed many more species, but with my limited knowledge of tropical fish, I had no idea how to identify the rest of them.

The Pavement’s Perspective

The subsequent morning, we took a road trip up to the North Shore with Ha’ena State Park our primary destination. We didn’t let that main target deter us from many stops and detours. First among those detours was Wailua Falls. This 173-foot drop was all about power and volume. Our next stop on the other hand, ‘Opaeka’a Falls, was a willowy tress of a cascade. The contrast between the two outpourings was nearly as dramatic as their waterworks. Shopping, eating, and bathroom seeking consumed a bit more of our time until we ended up at the Kilauea Lighthouse, which represents the northernmost part of the main Hawaiian Islands and home to thousands of rare and endangered seabirds including red-footed boobies, wedge-tailed shearwaters, Laysan albatrosses, and Newell’s shearwaters. Afterward, it was back to more eating at Wishing Well Shave Ice and more gawking at the fabulous Hanalei Valley, one of Kauai’s many iconic vistas.

We also halted to investigate an opening in the vine-covered cliffsides near Ha’ena State Park known as the Manini-holo Dry Cave. This cave is 300 yards deep with an undulating floor. Light filters in, but the dips in the bottom bounced over by sunshine are impossible to see into making passage uncertain.

We had passes for the Ha’ena State Park shuttle but purposefully missed our pickup time. We didn’t want to be tied to a schedule on our last day on the island. Instead, we walked from Ha’ena Beach Park, where we found a parking spot, down to Ke’e Beach. While this was only a mile, the shoreline in this area drops fast and rocks abound through stretches, complicating the journey. We passed a resting endangered monk seal, which opened her eyes momentarily and vocalized a little at us. Of course, we did not approach her as we strive to be good citizens of this planet. We made it to Ke’e Beach just in time for the towering cliffs of the Na Pali Coast to blush under the attention of the setting sun.

The Ongoing Perspective

Our last morning on the islands, we attempted to complete the Maha’ulepu Heritage Trail again while waiting for our flight, tempting rain and wreckage. I wish I could say the third time was the charm, but it wasn’t. While we made it farther than our previous tries, we ran out of time to reach the mysterious Makauwahi Sinkhole or Waiopili Petroglyphs. However, a viewpoint overlooking Maha’ulepu Beach did make a scenic end to our final, unsuccessful shot.

With that fragmentary hike, our time on the Garden Isle came to an end. In our brief visit, we skimmed clouds, hiked into garish gullies, flitted along rims, floated on currents, sloshed through unshakeable mud, dipped in tides, and hovered over pools. In keeping with the great vacation paradox, we both slowed down to perceive our surroundings and sped up to perceive as much as possible. Our understanding of our world increased as did our acknowledgements of our limited insights. Vacation victory!

The Crevices’ Perspective

The next morning, we headed west to the dry and rusty side of the island. There, once-black volcanic rock has eroded into brilliant scarlets due to its high iron oxide content. After stopping at Aloha Sweet Delights for some malasadas and manju, which I would highly recommend, we hit the Kukui Trail in Waimea State Park. This trail falls 2,300 feet into the “Grand Canyon of the Pacific.” While gravity was ever on our minds, and we knew we must reclimb what we lost, we willingly descended 1,100 feet over 1.25 miles to gorge ourselves on this chasm’s chaotic colors and thin ribbons of basalt. Thankfully, it was easier than expected returning due to the surplus oxygen at 2,700 feet above sea level. (Being a mountain girl does have its advantages.) Unfortunately, it was not less sweaty than expected. Blast you humidity! Or blast me humidity?

After our first hike and a brief detour to examine the Waimea Canyon Lookout, we headed out on the Pihea Trail. With a short extra spur up the Pihea Vista Trail, which only Jason managed, we trekked 2.3 miles on this stunning but challenging route, easily one of the oddest paths I’ve ever been on. It starts on the lip of the Kalalau Valley 4,000 feet from the ocean. Our guidebook called it “often muddy.” However, lured by the dramatic views and the dazzling fern and ‘ohi’a forest, we let the ease of the first section convince us that we’d lucked out and hit the trail during a dry spell. Therefore, we didn’t appreciate how long the rest of the way would take us or how much muck we’d have to navigate. We ended up returning to our car in the dark, and Jason was the only one who made it up the Vista extension thanks to a giant pit filled with mud at least half a foot deep blocking all routes. I lacked the primate skills to bypass it, though I considered taking some big risks. It’s a good thing my fear of becoming a sludge critter overshadowed my desire to complete the task. The bits of mud I accumulated on other sections of the trail were extremely hard to remove. After three scrubbings, my legs were still invisibly caked.

On our drive out of the canyon, we paused for a moment to glance at the stars. The Milky Way stretched directly over our heads striping the sky with its distinct chalky shimmers. Sometimes, a good sighting of that streak alone can remind you of your irrelevance, but we’d had millions of years of vibrant geology to prompt that feeling already.

The Flow’s Perspective

The following day, we toured the Allerton Garden, which is part of the National Tropical Botanical Garden. Over the space of 2.5 hours, we learned about the history and flora of this deliberate landscape, which began to be designed more than 100 years ago. There, bamboos, rare palms, cycads, gingers, lilies, and countless other species blend with unique water features to form peaceful and impressive pockets of life. South Pacific, Jurassic Park, and Pirates of the Caribbean are amongst the films that have used this flourishing setting as a backdrop. While our tour was marvelous, it was also wet. We weren’t prepared for the soaking we received. Moreover, we didn’t learn our lesson about not trusting the sunshine to last on Kauai. More on our stupidity later.

We deviated on our return from the garden to check out nearby Spouting Horn, a blowhole formed from a lava tube. This feature can blast ocean water up to 50 feet in the air. Another nearby tube that only fills with air emits grumbling and hissing sounds while Spouting Horn spews brine, adding to the illusion of its legend. In Hawaiian mythology, those noises emanate from a giant lizard trapped in the blowhole by a crafty fisherman. The “lizard’s” laments sounded like a Yellowstone geyser. The Yellowstone of the Pacific? No?

Later that afternoon, we again attempted to hike the Maha’ulepa Heritage Trail, this time with Jason’s parents. We failed once more not because of gashes but because of gushes. When we had gone just shy of a mile, it started pouring. We ran for cover, but cover wasn’t close… it was a mile away. By the time we reached our hotel, no part of us was dry and much was coated with Kauai’s persistent dirt.

The Locals’ Perspective

We spent a share of the next afternoon with friends who had moved to Kauai, which gave me a chance to pepper them with questions about their island experiences. They kindly took us to Farm Reservoir where we attempted eFoiling and paddle boarding. Well, Jason tried it, and I tried to take pictures of his undertakings in the rain. Not the easiest thing… for either of us. In case you didn’t catch that, yes, it did drizzle on us again.

Afterward, we had a fantastic dinner at Eating House 1849, our favorite meal of the trip. Online reservations were booked six weeks out, but we happened to walk by the restaurant and happened to ask about availability, and they happened to have a spot an hour later.

Next week, more perspective coverage is coming.

Jason and I had a trip booked with Jason’s parents to a Caribbean Island for June of 2020. This was supposed to be a thank you to them for raising that rascal. Because of COVID, our original plans got canceled. A year later, those arrangements were still pointless as the country we had intended on visiting was not accepting travelers due to continued flareups. Last fall, we determined that taking a trip somewhere was better than continuing to wait, and as traveling internationally was unreliable, we settled on the Hawaiian island of Kauai, the only standard Hawaiian island Jason and I had never visited.

Part of the appeal of traveling is seeing the world from different perspectives. While it is impossible to understand the heart and guts of any location during a brief stay, a tourist’s observations and experiences should ideally at least shift their viewpoint groove. Therefore, I was thrilled by how many different perspectives we acquired on Kauai, and that’s what, as you might guess, this post and its upcoming continuations are all about.

The Wind’s Perspective

Our first morning on Kauai, Jason and I went on a hike down the Maha’ulepa Heritage Trail. The Maha’ulepa Trail roams through lithified sand dunes worn by wind, salt, and sea into strange caverns and figures that line the shore. Just past Shipwreck Beach and Makawehi Point, only 15 minutes down the coast, Jason tore up his leg and foot on some lava rocks near a tide pool we had stopped to investigate. We had to return to our hotel before his savage wounds consumed him.

Later that afternoon, we took a doors-off helicopter tour with Jack Harter Helicopters. In a tiny MD Hughes 500, we zipped 100-120 mph about 1,000 feet above the ground and over 2,000 feet above the water. We traversed the whole island including much terrain wild and inaccessible by foot. Having a lack of machinery between our bodies and the lush landscape far beneath us wasn’t as terrifying as I thought, but, then again, due to my short stature, I was forced to take the Captain Kirk seat. This remarkable ride ended up being everyone’s favorite piece of our whole trip, and I would highly recommend splurging on a helicopter tour if you find yourself on Kauai.

Next week, the varying viewpoints will continue.