HAWAII: KAUAI, THE JURASSIC PARK ISLAND
Our final stop on Hawaii was the oldest inhabited island, Kauai, which is also called the Garden Island. It is smaller than the other islands (only 2 hours to drive around), less developed and has a smaller population, e.g. only 6,000 people live in the capital, Li'hue.
Kauau is a little paradise even within Hawaii with amazing natural beauty; its mountainous coastlines, stunning white-sand beaches, lush rain forests, dramatic waterfalls and otherworldly canyons are picture-perfect. No wonder that many Hollywood movies and television shows have been filmed here since the 1950-ies, including the Jurassic Park series, The Descendants, Pirate of the Caribbean, some parts of the Avatar, Just Go With It and Blue Hawaii (with Elvis Presley), just to mention a few, Similarly to the Harry Potter trails in London, you can actually hop on a Jurassic Park-themed helicopter ride to see the main locations from the movies.
Taro fields with the famous Na Pali coastline backdrop
Since most visitors go to Oahu (where Honolulu is) and the Big Island, Kauau was the first island in Hawaii where we felt that we were able to partly get off the beaten track, and experience a more authentic local atmosphere. It has plenty of small shops, family restaurants, smaller buildings, and there were even areas with intentional single-lane roads and bridges to prevent it getting more accessible to tourists. This gave the place a laid back feeling.
There's much to see on Kauai, so the list below is just our own collection of the most loved places.
KAUAI BUCKET LIST
1. Hanalei Bay
We stayed in a small holiday village in Princeville, near the famous Hanalei Bay, one of the best and longest beaches on the island - it's nearly 2 miles -, surrounded by mountains. We walked the length of the beach a few times enjoying the beautiful hilly backdrop that made the view of Hanalei Bay famous and what we would soon see closer on our Na Pali coastal walk. The bay is ideal for swimming and stand up paddle boarding in the summer and for surfing in the winter.
Hanalei Bay; Sunset in the bay from Princeville
Hanalei Bay village is in a short walk away from the bay, and it's composed of a dozen or so restaurants and shops set around the main street and surrounded by picturesque taro fields,
You can walk to the estuary of the Hanalei river from the beach and rent a kayak to paddle through lush taro fields that are also frequently visited by nene-s, the protected Hawaiian duck.
2. Na Pali Coast
One of the two main draws of the island is the Na Pali coastline that simply looks unrealistically perfect. There are options to see it from the air, by sea or on your feet as you hike on the Kalalu trail and get amazing views. Never being ones to miss out on some exercise, we decided to choose this latter option and immerse ourselves in the midst of the experience.
View on the Kalalu trail
The Kalalu trail is actually rated as one of the highlights of the entire Hawaii. The track starts from Keke'e Beach, a short drive from Hanalei with scenic beaches along the way, Being a bit under the weather, we decided to go for the shorter 4-mile round trip hike leading to Hanakapi'ai beach, which still felt like a lot with all the inclines, but it was decidedly less than the 8-mile day trip option continuing uphill to Hanakapi'ai Falls or the 3-day hike to the other end of the park. This was a good balance between exercise and seeing the turquoise waters and beautiful green hills, and it still allowed us enough time to take a a dip and snorkel at Keke'e beach at the end of the hike. We're on a vacation after all!
Snorkeling at Keke'e beach; The colours and corals of the beach from the trail
3. Kilauea Lighthouse
We coincidentally made it to Kilauea Lighthouse because we had some time to kill one day, but we're so happy we did! It's a registered historic building from 1913 located on the Northern tip of the island on a peninsula surrounded by ocean cliffs and abundant birdlife. Today the peninsula operates as a National Wildlife Refuge, The most common birds here are albatrosses, red-footed boobies, and the protected Hawaiian ducks (nene), which is hard to see on other islands. If you're lucky you can also see endangered Hawaiian monk seals, sea turtles and whales close to the coast. Apparently the lighthouse was also featured in the Hawaiian Walt Disney animation, Lilo & Stitch.
The Kilauea peninsula
The protected Hawaiian nene is rare on the other islands
4. Waimea Canyon
The other signature attraction on Kauai is the Waimea canyon, which is often called the greener version of the Grand Canyon. While it is very impressive in terms of size (16 km long and 900 m deep on an area of 7.5 km2), I suspect it is quite a bit smaller than the original. 'Waimea' means 'Reddish water' in Hawaiian, referring to the red soil of the canyon that dominates the region. The pictures speak for themselves of the fantastic scenery, despite the fact that we were frequently hindered by the sudden appearance of clouds at this altitude. In fact, the canyon is located not far from Mount Wai'ale'ale, one of the wettest points of the world - which the locals are quite proud of!
The green Grand Canyon
5. Po'ipu beach
On the way back from the canyon to Hanalei we broke up the drive with a stop at Po'ipu beach, one of the top choices of holiday-makers due to its great beaches for snorkeling and surfing, the wide selection of accommodations and its ideal central location for visiting the key sites of the island.
GETTING YOUR CULTURAL FIX ON KAUAI
Cuisine
Apart from natural beauties, Kauai was also a good place to taste some of the staples from the authentic Hawaiian cuisine, The most famous is poke, a simple but delicious meal of rice and fresh raw ahi (tuna). This is often served with additional poi, or mashed taro (a type of potato), which we found to be mediocre despite it being traditionally Hawaiian. And finally the much hyped shaved ice turned out to be a lot better than we anticipated when we realised that some vendors use plenty of fruit and syrup containing actual fruit instead of artificial flavouring!
Local delicacies: poi (taro), tuna poke and shaved ice
Hula
Some of the first things that come to mind when thinking about Hawaii are hula dancers and lei (flower necklaces), so, of course, we had to give both of them a try! We visited a hula show near Li'hue at the Smith's Tropical Garden as part of their luau. Luau, the traditional feast is a Hawaiian holiday essential for most visitors on the island where an all-you-can-eat-and-drink dinner is followed by an entertaining cultural performance with hula, Polynesian dancers and fire dancers. These feasts are normally charged at astronomical prices - perhaps to ensure vast profits even with considerable amount of food and alcohol consumption -,meaning that guests end up paying 4-5x the price of a dinner at another restaurant. However, few people know that in some luaus it is possible to attend the cultural performance only, arriving at the venue by the end of dinner time and paying a fraction of the entrance fee. We preferred this option and only bought tickets to the show - with only about 5 other people in total!-, and since seating is on a first-come-first-served basis, we actually ended up getting the best seats in the house for our $15 while the other guests were finishing up their dinner! Not surprisingly, this option is not widely advertised, but we found it through the Hawaii discount page which saved us a good chunk of money during our holiday.
The show contained an interesting mix of Hawaiian and Polynesian dances, along with some other dances that felt a bit out of place, such as a Japanese geisha dance or a bamboo pole dance from the Philippines since large portions of the current population are from these countries. Overall, it was definitely worthy of the price we payed, and it was good fun that would be a shame to miss once on Hawaii.
Although the timing wasn't convenient for us, we know that budget-conscious travellers can also watch free hula performances in the Coconut Marketplace shopping centre on Wednesdays and Saturdays thanks to an association that aims to preserve and promote the indigenous culture. They also organise hula dance and lei making workshops, but as timing is subject to demand, you have to be flexible .
Lei making For lei making we also managed to find a smart alternative way instead of the advertised courses or buying lei which takes away the fun of learning how to make it yourself. We joined an activity at a luxury hotel in Princeville, the St. Regis, which has amazing views over Hanalei Bay, so it's not a bad spot for a night out! We started the evening with cocktails while watching the sun set over the sea on the hotel's panoramic terrace, probably one of the best locations to do so on the island! There's live music entertainment in the lobby, fancy mai tai cocktail variations in the bar and welcoming management. After welcoming all guests, the hotel manager even opened a bottle of champagne with a sword and shared with the guests according to the old traditions of the hotel.
Sunset coctails in the St Regis Bar
After sunset we joined the lei making table in the main hall with fresh orchidea and tuberose picked from the hotel gardens. Each Hawaiian island has its own traditional lei flower and pattern that people wear at special occasions. The simple pattern is very easy to make, but there are plenty of nuances and twists that you can learn to make it fancy. We had a lot of fun making them ourselves, and what's even better, the whole activity was free for just some tips to the facilitators, so it's definitely worth checking out if you're on the island. Be forewarned though, the only way you can park at the hotel is by valet parking: you drive all the way to the entrance of the hotel, get out and give the keys to a valet who then goes and parks the car. Then you repeat the process in the opposite direction when you come pick the car up (and tip the valet of course, you are meant to tip everyone in the US). Now it's not that the cost was excessive (parking meter would have cost more), but I just don't see the value of paying someone to park my car! My legs work perfectly fine to walk 50m from the parking space to the entrance!
Religion
Since our visit on Kauai included Easter, we decided to attend the Easter mass in one of the oldest churches on the island where masses run in Hawaiian and English, The Wai'oli Hui'ia Church in Hanalei is an incredibly pretty building that was founded by American missionaries in 1834. Experiencing an American style mass was very interesting, since it had a very different tone to what we were used to: the pastor had a direct and engaging way of speaking, and there were sections where he engaged with people directly, including calling the children to sit on the ground in front and telling them stories from the Bible and how it related to his personal life. All of this was laced with Hawaiian elements, e.g. the pastor and most of the congregation was wearing Hawaiian shirts, and most of the hymns and gospels were in Hawaiian as well, making it hard for us to follow but really cool nonetheless.
A few local volunteers even performed a traditional hula dance, making us realise the huge difference to the ones seen at luaus. The traditional dances are not performed by lightly dressed young girls with special focus on moving hips, but the key is the elegant movements of the hands and arms that reflect deep emotions, The community in the church was extremely welcoming, we were called out as one of the participants who came geographically from the furthest place to Hawaii, and people came to talk to us at the end of the mass expressing how happy they were to see us among them! It was a little overwhelmingly positive experience! Naturally, a traditional Easter egg hunt in the garden followed the event with all the children participating - something that most of us missed from our childhood in Hungary, where this only became popular a few years ago.
Our days on Kauai went too fast and we were sorry to leave the island, since we found here the most appealing pace of life and atmosphere on our trip. We flew back to Honolulu in the evening, had a short overnight at the airport, then caught our 10-hour flight back to Sydney. Sadly, it makes the end of a holiday a bit even more sore that you loose here the entire day that you made on the way to Hawaii by crossing the International Date Line.