Cruisin' Kauai

There are lots of things to do on Kauai. As soon as you step off the plane there are countless brochures that list the adventures awaiting you: stand-up paddleboarding, bike rentals, golf courses, snorkel cruises, helicopter tours, kayaking tours, zipline and luaus. Just to name a few. Except for Neva's trail ride and zipline afternoon, we did none of that.

Everyone who had been here before us advised, "You HAVE to do the helicopter ride over the canyon." and "You MUST do a boat tour of the Napali Coast."

Neva gets seasick. She encouraged Char and I to go, but we didn't need to. The ocean looked just fine to us from a chair on the beach. We did actually make an effort to walk along one beach and get our feet wet. (See photos later in this post.)

The helicopter ride, to see the canyon as it has already been captured in countless photos, is $175 each. We weren't afraid to ride in a helicopter, and we could afford it. But we were more interested in microviews than macroviews. So we drove up the Waimea Canyon road and got to see all the details along the way. I stopped at every view point. Char and Neva followed the paths to the overlooks and stood waaaaay back from the edge, like good flatlanders. I didn't even go up the trails, I stayed in the parking lots. It just didn't look like a good place to be stumbling around.

Even though the canyon road is on an amazingly narrow ridge, there is thick vegetation on both sides of the road. There is only an occasional, quickly passed, drop-off view for a driver. I didn't find it scary to drive.

Overall, I think we had more fun feeding the chickens than seeing the canyon.

I've since read about some of the hiking trails available in that area and they sound like a wonderful challenge for people who can handle that sort of thing. Thirty years ago we might have tried that.

Char feeds some beautiful Golden Duckwings at Waimea Canyon lookout

On our microview tour of the canyon, we saw some interesting things. In one place there were several fellows in camouflage clothing standing next to a dirty truck that had a bunch of dogs in the back. The guys sorta looked like hunters, but the dogs didn't. Each was a different variation of mutt, some seemed much too small to chase game, like large Chihuahuas. At another place we saw 4 people wearing brand spanking new, expensive, hunting togs and carrying power bows. Near the top of the mountain we were shocked to see blue hydrangeas peeking out from the native foliage like they were planning an invasion.

When we finally reached the visitor center at the Kalaulau Lookout, we had lots of questions for the lady behind the souvenir counter. The hunters were after wild pigs, she told us. The first bunch were undoubtedly residents of the island. The second bunch had paid for a guided hunt. The blue hydrangeas had been planted by an early settler in memory of his mother who had loved them on the mainland and no, they don't proliferate. I should have known that. There is a giant hydrangeas in my front yard that's older than I am. If it scattered seeds, they would surely grow in Sloughhouse's rich topsoil. I've started some from cuttings, though.

By the end of the week we had traveled every mile of every major highway on the island. We went to the end of the road in both directions (there are no roads all the way around, Na Pali is impassable).

The entire island of Kauai is smaller than Sacramento county in California. Sacramento county is 965 square miles. Kauai is 562 square miles. I could show you everything worth seeing in my home county in 2 days. It took the whole week to see Kauai, even though we didn't do very many of the standard tourist activities.

Why? Sacramento county is flat as a pancake. The landfill that I see from my back door is the highest point at 275 feet. The highest peak on Kauai is 5,243 feet. There might actually be more land on Kauai if you consider vertical feet. Sacramento county all looks pretty much the same. Kauai has a rich variety of microclimates and landscapes. Most areas are lush and green. The giant philodendron and golden pothos climb the trees like houseplants on steroids, and we wanted to see them all. Anyone who loves plants would be saying the same thing I often did, "I want one of THOSE!" (Actually I already have those, what I really want is for mine to grow like the ones on the island.)

Another reason it takes so long to see everything on Kauai is the roads are not meant for speedy travel. Once in a while the speed limit is actually as high as 45, but those occasions are rare. In California, Caltrans puts the fastest speed limits in rural areas like mine, making it harder for us and our animals to survive, so the city folk can zoom through from their homes in big, isolated developments to their jobs in town. It seemed like the slowest speed limits on Kauai were often, thoughtfully, in places where people might want to slow down to enjoy the view.

I know I talked about this a couple of years ago when I was on Maui -- when you first start driving in the islands, it's very difficult to drive so slow. The car complains about it, it needs to go at least 55 to be happy. There should be special cars made for the islands, not the ones made on the mainland that are meant to be driven insanely fast.

The island cars should all have moon roofs that you can open to let in the soft tropical air and give you a view of the treetops, then close during the daily rainshowers. The cars should be narrower so it's not so spooky to meet a tour bus on a winding road. There should be a camera mounted on the roof that allows the driver to click pictures from a button on the steering wheel and not have to rely on passengers with CDD (camera deficit disorder) to snap them. There are turnoffs at designated scenic places, but it's often impossible to pull over and park to take a picture when you run across some unexpected sight. Like a horse staked out on a long rope, grazing on the roadside.

On other trips I've been accompanied by Katherine, who not only can handle my camera better than I can, but always has her point-and-shoot in her pocket. I've seen her whip that out as I was driving 65 mph and still get a shot of something (like a squashed armadillo) on the road. And there's Jonathan, who always has his iPhone. He could not only snap high speed pictures or videos from the copilot seat, but used the iPhone instead of a map to find our way. Neva and Char are not so tech savvy, so we missed a few shots.

Neva has a particularly severe case of CDD. I discovered this years ago when we did a lot of trail riding. I always carried my Pentax. When we'd find a great place for a picture, I would pose Neva and her horse perfectly, take her picture, then we'd trade places. Neva is an artist, she would frame the photo very well, but when she pushed the button, her whole body moved. Often she would cut off my head, or the photo would be blurry. Time and a faster lens has not cured this. Char is more reliable with the camera. It's difficult to see the viewfinder screen when the sun glares on it, so sometimes she had to guess. (Also I need to coach her how to take pictures that make my butt look smaller.)

Beachcombing, Char and Neva.
I could have taken a better picture,
but for the glare on the screen.

Beachcombing, Jan
with hair in face and wind under shirt.
Looks like I was smuggling a Nene. Photo by Char.
(You can tell because it isn't fuzzy and I still have my head.)

All of us. Taken by another tourist.

Next: Why it took so long to see all of such a small island (and why we were glad it did).