Vacation Rental in Princeville Kauai

and Kauai Travel Guide

©B.Pruitt 2009-2012

North Shore Kauai Sights

The 20-mile stretch of shoreline from Kilauea to the sea cliffs of Na Pali is considered the North Shore.  It is a luxuriant ribbon of tropical vegetation, lava cliffs, sandy beaches and scenic coves backdropped by primordial peaks that carve a mystical silhouette.  Nurtured by the prevailing Trade Winds, the North Shore receives more rainfall than other parts of the island.  The rain brings rainbows and feeds the vegetation causing it to be even more lush and green than the rest of the island.  On rainy days, the mountains robed in rainforest, present an ethereal quality as clouds alternately shroud their peaks then drift and lift, revealing waterfalls spilling back to the sea.

 

The Kuhio Highway winds it way through the North Shore, labeled as Highway 56 until it reaches Princeville where it becomes Highway 560.  From here the pace of traffic and life slows as the road rolls through the quaint village of Hanalei and snakes along the coastline.  Ten miles from Princeville, the road ends and the Na Pali coastline begins.

 

Kilauea

 

At Mile Marker 20, the Kuhio Highway turns west and soon the prominent hill of Pu‘u Kilauea projecting from the shoreline becomes visible.  The eruption that caused the 568-foot volcanic cone occurred between 13,000 and 15,000 years ago and probably represents the most recent volcanic activity on Kauai.

In the lush land east of Pu‘u Kilauea, Na ‘Aina Kai Botanical Garden recently opened to public tours.  The stunningly beautiful estate built by Ed and Joyce Doty operates as a public trust and welcomes visitors to its 12 acres of formal gardens, 45 acres of exotic fruit trees and 110 acres of tropical hardwood forests.  Tour guides take visitors along meandering paths that pass by arbors, waterfalls, gazebos, topiary, koi-filled ponds and waterfalls.  More than 65 bronze statues of people and animals designed in Americana style highlight the natural splendor.  The botanical garden is sectioned into 12 theme gardens.  In the Shower Tree Park the guide will lead you past a rose arbor to serene Ka‘ula Lagoon where a Japanese tea house sits by a waterfall.  An arched bridge leads to an island in the lagoon and the statue of a dancing hula girl.  A large maze sculpted from mock orange hedges into the design of a flowering plant rewards the adventurous with whimsical statuary hidden in its confines.  Stunning cacti and succulents stand in contrast to the surrounding tropical foliage in the Desert Garden.  Juxtaposed to the desert, the Palm Garden shades you with green and silvery-gray fronds.  Your guide will open a cast iron security gate to allow you to enter the Carnivorous Plant House (the gate keeps chickens out).  A bog environment is created in the house that harbors Venus fly traps, butterworts and tropical pitcher plants.  Tours take visitors through a plantation of hardwood trees, grown to hopefully become commercially viable.  Rows of teak and mahogany trees give way to less familiar sounding names like: cocobolo, rainbowbark, mangosteen and pau ferro, used as a sound wood by violin makers.  

 

All tours of Na ‘Aina Kai are guided and are given Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays.  Participants ride on trams between the garden areas.  A tour of the Formal Gardens starts and 8:30 a.m., takes 1.5 hours and costs $25 per person.  A tour of the Wild Forest Garden leaves at 1:00 p.m., takes 1.5 hours and cost $25 per person.  A 2.5 hour Nature Walk Tour is given Thursdays at 9:00 a.m. for a cost of $35.  An Evening Stroll takes place each Wednesday at 3:00 p.m.  It lasts 3.5 hours and costs $35.  Twice each month the physically fit are taken on a five-hour Full Tour.  The cost is $70 with lunch included.  Children under the age of 13 are not allowed on the tours.  Additional tours may be added as demand warrants.  Reservations are necessary and can be made by phoning (808) 828-0525.  Wailapa Road is the entrance road to Na ‘Aina Kai.  Turn makai onto Wailapa between mile markers 21 and 22 of the Kuhio Highway and follow it to the end.

 

The former plantation town of Kilauea is generally considered the gateway to Kauai's North Shore.  The Kilauea Sugar Company incorporated in 1880 and was half owned each by British and American interests.  Princess Lili‘uokalani visited Kilauea in the early 1880s to dedicate the first sugar cane train line constructed on Kauai.  The 24-inch gauge railway had a small engine, three miles of portable track and 24 cars that were used to haul cane and bags of sugar.

 

Workers for the plantation were brought in from China, Japan, Portugal, Germany and even the Gilbert Islands.  Most immigrants came to work on a four-year contract.  At first the ethnic groups were segregated into their own camps.  However, as the decades passed the system changed and bachelor workers lived in one camp, families in another with better homes being allocated according to job rank.

 

In 1883, some of the newly arrived workers went on strike.  They claimed that the plantation failed to provide suitable housing and the use of plots of land as was promised to them.  Those that weren't jailed for striking carried the matter to court in Honolulu.  As a result, some of the laborers were released from their contracts.  

 

C. Brewer and company took over management of Kilauea Plantation in 1922.  L.D. Larsen, who has a namesake beach at Moloa‘a, became its manager.  Larsen was instrumental in the building of the numerous stone-walled houses and buildings in Kilauea.  Both quarried stone and stones cleared from cane fields were used.  The sturdy structures replaced run-down wooden plantation homes.

 

The plantation closed in 1971 due in part to mill waste running off into the ocean in violation of newly enacted Environmental Protection Agency regulations.  Predictions that Kilauea would soon fold didn't materialize.  Today Kilauea is a well-maintained residential community with residents that work mainly in the visitor industry in Princeville or commute to jobs in Lihu‘e.  When it closed, the plantation gave its workers still living at Kilauea an opportunity to buy lots, with choices based on seniority.  Rank and file workers were housed along the edge of hillsides overlooking the Kilauea River, above the plantation dump.  Today the dump is covered over and the lots are the most valuable in town because of their excellent views.

 

The entrance to Kilauea is Kolo Road, just past the 23-mile marker at the Shell service station.  Where Kolo Road intersects with Kilauea Road is Christ Memorial Episcopal Church.  The present church of cut lava stone walls and stained glass windows from England was built in 1941.  Adjoining the church is a cemetery with headstones dating back to the 1880s, when the original Hawaiian Congregational Church stood here.

 

A short distance farther along Kolo Road is the octagonal-shaped St. Sylvester Catholic Church.  This church-in-the-round has pews nearly circling the altar.  Above the altar, the Stations of the Cross are frescos painted by the late Jean Charlot, one of Hawaii's most important artists.

 

Drive north on Kilauea Road and stop at the Kong Lung Store on the right.  Originally, this handsome stone building held the Kilauea Plantation's store.  Plantation workers would have depended on this store for life's necessities and paid with deductions from their next paycheck.  Now the store beautifully showcases clothing, art, fragrances and gift items from Asia and Hawaii.  

 

A mile north on Kilauea Road is the most northerly point on Kauai and the Kilauea Point National Wildlife Refuge.  The refuge encompasses 160 acres of rugged sea cliffs, a peninsula jutting into the waves and the rocky islet of Moku‘Ae‘ae.  Standing proud of Kilauea Point is the historic lighthouse, erected in 1913 to aid commercial shipping between Hawaii and Asia.  The Coast Guard deactivated the lighthouse, which contains the largest clamshell lens in the world, in 1976 and replaced it with a high intensity beacon.  The view from the point is truly grand.  Surf crashes on the rocky cliffs 200 feet below and to the west is a sweeping view of Secret Beach and the North Shore.

 

The Wildlife Refuge, a sanctuary to five species of sea birds, can turn a casual observer into an ardent bird watcher.  The mostly black, great frigatebirds soar effortlessly on pointed wings that may span seven feet and have a distinctive forked tail.  Great frigatebirds nest in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands and visit Kauai to feed.  The Hawaiian name for the species is Iwa, which means "thief."  The great frigatebird likes to harass other sea birds that have just caught a fish.  If its victim releases its catch, the avian pirate swoops down to nab the fish in mid-air.  Red-footed boobies claim the entire cliffside to the east of Kilauea Point in the spring and summer months.  Boobies have long pointed wings, long tails, pointed bills and brightly colored feet.  Sometimes called gannets, the term booby apparently arose because the nesting birds acted so boldly and fearlessly towards people that they were considered stupid.  Boobies plunge-dive to catch their prey of fish and squid underwater.  Unlike most other birds, the boobies have nostrils that close to prevent water rushing into their lungs as they hit the ocean.  Tropicbirds present a striking silhouette when they fly with two very long, thin tail feathers, called streamers.  These white or white-and-black birds have short legs unsuited for walking on land and webbed feet.  Tropicbirds breed in nests they build in rock cavities on the adjacent cliffs.  Both parents incubate a single egg.  

 

The other two species of sea birds at the refuge, the wedge-tailed shearwater and the Laysan albatross, are members of the same family of sea birds called tubenoses.  They are so-called because their nostrils emerge through tubes on their distinctly hooked upper bills.  A gland between their eyes permits them to drink seawater by filtering salt from the water and concentrating it.  This concentrated salt solution is excreted in drops from the base of the bill and directed to the end of the bill by the nostril tubes.  The wedge-tailed shearwater breeds in burrows and cavities on hillsides.  They can be easily seen sitting on their nests from the pathways on Kilauea Point.  Both parents will incubate the single egg for six to nine weeks and take turns in feeding the chick.  The burrow or cavity is re-used each year by the same pair.    

 

Laysan albatrosses began using the Kilauea Refuge for breeding in the 1970s.  Albatrosses use a type of non-flapping flight known at dynamic soaring.  They use their long narrow wings to take advantage of strong winds blowing across the ocean's surface.  Their soaring flight takes them in huge loops from high above the ocean where the wind is fastest to down toward the surface where friction slows the wind and then up into the faster wind again, never having to flap their wings.  To take off from the sea they face the wind to get maximum lift just as an airplane does.  If the wind is strong enough just extending its wings out will get the albatross airborne.  Otherwise the large bird must run across the surface of the water or land to take off.  Albatrosses are sometimes called gooney birds because of their awkwardness moving on land and their clumsiness during take-offs and landings (crashing into beach shrubbery and taking nose-dives are common occurrences).  The albatross mates for life and may live for 60 years.

 

A project by Wake Forest University and funded by Kilauea Point Natural History Association has fitted satellite transmitters to some of Hawaii's albatrosses.  The purpose is to track Laysan albatross on their voyages across the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands.  The transmitters have shown that these birds can cover thousand of miles in several days.  The project has an internet site that keeps track of the tagged birds.  At the site, students in grades four through nine can sign up to receive e-mail notification of the bird's location every 24 hours.  The address of the internet site is: www.wfu.edu/albatross.

 

Besides the sea birds, watch for a recently introduced mating pair of nene close to the lighthouse.  In the sea you may see green sea turtles and dolphins and during the winter months, watch for humpback whales.

 

Displays and dioramas about native Hawaiian habitats, endangered native plants and wildlife are placed on pathways about the peninsula and in the interpretive building.  A guided hike to Crater Hill leaves the interpretive center at 10:15 a.m.  Reservations may be made by calling 828-0168 or arrive at departure time and you will be included if they have openings.  There is no charge for the guided hike but participants must pay the entrance fee to the refuge.  The walk is approximately one mile long and takes two hours.  Native and introduced plants and wildlife encountered will be identified and the geological features of Crater Hill will be pointed out.  The refuge is open daily from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. and an entrance fee of $3 is collected.  Volunteer docents are often on hand to answer visitors' questions and lend binoculars.

 

Across from Kilauea, just north of mile marker 23 is the entrance road to the Guava Kai Plantation.  Two very large guavas wearing sunglasses mark the spot.  The plantation has 480 acres of guava orchard under commercial cultivation.  The mile-long access road to the visitor center passes neat rows of hybrid guava trees bearing exceptionally large fruit.  Here you can learn how Kauai guava is grown and processed.  The processing plant is in operation from August to December and is open for viewing.  Free juice and jam samples are available at the gift shop, which sells all kinds of guava-based products.  Visitors are welcome to stroll into the orchard and pick some guava fruit.  A small botanical garden waits on the other side of an archway next to the parking lot.  A pathway crosses a stream and leads past many labeled tropical trees and plants to a gazebo and picnic benches next to a pond.  The visitor center and garden are open daily, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.  No admission fee is charged.

 

At mile marker 24 of the highway is the first of two intersections with Kalihiwai Road.  This is the turnoff for access to both Secret Beach and Kalihiwai Beach (see Beaches chapter).  A devastating tsunami washed out the bridge over Kalihiwai Stream on April 1, 1946 and yet another tsunami hit here on March 3, 1957.  Remnants of the bridge supports still stand in the stream but Kalihiwai Road is permanently bisected.  A bridge on the Kuhio Highway now crosses Kalihiwai Stream at higher ground.  There was a parking area for a viewpoint of the Kalihiwai Valley next to bridge, just past mile marker 25 but the county installed a barricade, believing pedestrians were endangered.  By walking onto the bridge you can usually see a waterfall a half-mile up the valley, cascading towards Kalihiwai Stream from the right.  On the mauka side of the highway and a few yards up the hill from the barricade is another waterfall.

 

At mile marker 24 is the second intersection with Kalihiwai Road.  This part of the road leads to ‘Anini Beach (see Beaches chapter).  The Princeville Airport appears next on the mauka side of the highway.  Presently it is only being used as a heliport for Heli USA's sightseeing tours.  In the past, small airplanes used Princeville Airport for scheduled flights.

 

Princeville

 

After passing the Prince Golf Course clubhouse you approach the entrance to the resort community of Princeville.  Princeville is a carefully planned development spread over 11,000 acres on a 200-foot-high lava shelf between ‘Anini Beach and Hanalei Bay.  An elegant, old-world-style fountain and statue greets visitors and residents at the entrance to this manicured enclave of two luxury resort hotels, 16 condominium and time-share complexes, several private homes, and two renowned golf courses.

 

The plateau overlooking Hanalei Bay was once a plantation owned by Scotsman, Robert Crichton Wyllie.  Wyllie served as foreign minister for the Kingdom of Hawaii under Kamehamehas IV and V.  To honor the visit of Kamehameha IV and Queen Emma in 1860, Wyllie named his estate, Barony de Princeville, in honor of the royal couple's young son, Prince Albert.  Sadly, the boy-prince died shortly afterwards at the age of four.  Every year in May, a festival is held in Princeville in his memory.  The festival is marked by concerts of Hawaiian and classical music and a children's hula recital.  In his capacity as foreign minister, Wyllie sought and received recognition of Hawaii as an independent nation by countries around the world.  He was less successful in his business endeavors.  Upon his death in 1865, Wyllie's estate was sold to pay off his sizeable debts.

 

When attempts to grow and mill sugar by land owners A.S. Wilcox and later, the Lihu‘e Plantation, proved unsuccessful, the property at Princeville became a cattle ranch.  In 1968, the land was sold to a Denver-based oil and gas company for development.  Today, Princeville Resort is a privately held corporation.

 

The main road in Princeville meanders for two miles, past condominiums and the Makai Golf Course, ending at the Princeville Hotel.  The multi-tiered edifice cascades down its perch overlooking Hanalei Bay.  Built in 1985, the hotel and its 252 rooms, underwent major remodeling in 1989.  The lobby exudes elegance on a grand scale.  Gold-crowned Corinthian columns draw the eye up to ethereal ceilings painted with wandering clouds.  A central skylight brightens bountiful floral arrangements.  Gurgling reflective pools mirror the panorama that unfolds beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows. Even this elegance and beauty can't overshadow the wonderful view of nature at its best.  Below the verdant ridges and towering waterfalls of Namolokama Mountain, Hanalei Bay carves a perfect arc of blue ocean and white sand.  Beyond the bay, rain-carved ridges repeat to the west.  Silhouetting the setting sun, the mystical peak of Bali Hai defines what seems to be the farthest edge of paradise.

 

On the front lawn of the Princeville Hotel the vestiges of earthen walls vaguely outline the perimeter of what was Fort Alexander.  An ambitious agent of the Russian-American company, Georg Schäffer, built the fort in 1816 to have a commanding view to the entrance of Hanalei Bay.  Acting without the authority of the Russian government, Schäffer made an alliance with Kaumuali‘i, the king of Kauai.  In return for land and trading rights, Schäffer promised Russia's help in overthrowing Kamehameha's rule of the island.  Schäffer couldn't deliver on his promises and was chased off the island in 1817.  In 1973, archaeologists from the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum mapped and excavated the remnants of the fort.  The walls were constructed entirely of clay and topsoil.  They discovered foundations for two small structures within the fort.  All that remains of foundations are a few stone pilings.  Interpretive signs at the fort tell the story of the brief, unofficial Russian interlude in Kauai.  

 

Below Princeville, on a north-facing lava shelf, the ocean's waves have worn a depression into the lava rock.  Waves splashing over the shelf fill the depression, creating a salt-water swimming pool called Queen's Bath.  Watch for green sea turtles bobbing in the surf along the lava shelf.  High winter surf may, however, make swimming in the pool, and even walking on the lava shelf to the pool very dangerous.  People have been knocked down and washed to their deaths in the roiling sea.  Do not visit this site except at times of calm ocean conditions.  To find Queen's Bath, turn makai from Ka Haku Road, Princeville's main road, onto Punahele Road. The end of Punahele Road intersects with Kapi‘olani Loop.  A small parking area here is the start of the trail to the lava shelf.  At the bottom of the steep trail turn left and make your way over the rocks to the pool.

 

Returning to the highway, the 2,487-foot-high twin peaks of the mountain, Hihimanu, appears behind Princeville's water fountain.  Hihimanu means "manta ray" and is so named because the peaks resemble the fin tips of the manta ray.   

 

Princeville's shopping center caters to both local residents and tourists.  Tenants include a supermarket, hardware store, medical clinic, restaurants, banks and the last gas station along the north shore.  Across the highway from the shopping center is the Hanalei Valley Overlook.  Laid out before you is the sweeping vista of the valley and flatland drained by the Hanalei River and a green curtain of mountains.  The patchwork of shimmering taro fields that fill the valley's floor is split down the middle by the river, visible for four miles from your vantage point.  Every postcard rack on the island stocks a picture of this scene.  The ridge along the east (left) side of the valley was once a canyon almost 2,000 feet deep.  Thick flows of lava from the later occurring Koloa eruption filled the canyon to the brim and in so doing, displaced the canyon's stream to the west.  There the stream eroded the weaker Na Pali basalt flows to a depth of about 1,000 feet, creating the modern Hanalei Valley.

 

In 1972, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service designated 917 acres of Hanalei Valley as Hanalei National Wildlife Refuge.  Taro, which is used to make poi, has been cultivated here for 1,200 years and the refuge helps ensure its survival by maintaining the main irrigation ditches.  The taro farmers in turn maintain their own dikes, ditches and crops, creating the diverse habitats of marshy land, shallow standing water and ponds needed by native waterbirds.  In the last 200 years, sugar cultivation and urban developments have reduced Hawaii's natural wetlands and taro ponds to five percent of their original acreage.  As these lands were drained, native waterbird populations declined.  Birds like Hawaiian coots, Hawaiian gallinules, Hawaiian ducks and Hawaiian black-necked stilts were placed on the federal endangered species list.  These birds as well as such migrating birds as the northern pintail, northern shoveler, golden plover and the sanderling are represented in the Hanalei Refuge.     

 

From here, Highway 56 changes to Highway 560 and the mileage markers start at zero.  Half a mile along Highway 560 is another viewpoint, this time on the right side of the road.  Visible from this vantage point are the town of Hanalei, Hanalei Bay and the north shore mountains to the west.  Around a couple of sharp curves in the highway is the historic Hanalei Bridge, built in 1912.  The rusted steel trusses above the bridge are no longer needed for support. Reinforcements added to the structure under the road deck now support the entire structure.  The Hanalei Bridge is the first of seven one-lane bridges on Highway 560.  All of the one-lane bridges have yield signs from both approaches.  Whoever enters the bridge first has the right-of-way.  All vehicles in line behind that vehicle proceed as well.  When the line of vehicles has cleared then the traffic from the other direction takes its turn.

At the other end of the bridge, Ohiki Road branches to the left.  You may follow this narrow road into the refuge for 1.8 miles.  You will get a close look at the heart-shaped leaves of the taro plant and there is an abandoned rice mill that is being restored.  You are not allowed to walk into the refuge however.  That privilege is restricted to the farmers and the birds.

 

Hanalei

 

Beyond the Hanalei Bridge, the highway runs between the river and the taro fields for a mile of pastoral scenes before reaching the town of Hanalei.  This small community blends an eclectic mix of farmers, artists, surfers, hippies and tourists into comfortable co-existence.  Along the main street are several good restaurants and two shopping centers, the Ching Young Village and the Old Hanalei School Center.  Mauka of the main street are more taro fields and the towering green wall that is Nāmolokama Mountain.  After heavy rains, as many as 23 waterfalls flow down its face.  The middle massif is Māmalahoa, 3,745 feet high and named after the wife of Kāne, the supreme god of ancient Kauai.

One block makai is Weke Road, which follows the curve of Hanalei Bay.  Turn right onto Weke Road from any of the connecting roads (all named after Hawaiian fish) and you are headed towards the Hanalei Pier and the mouth of the Hanalei River.  On the way to Pier there is a large brown house with a wrap around porch to the right.  This is the old Wilcox estate, home to descendants of early Hanalei missionaries, Abner and Lucy Wilcox.  The concrete pier is a great place to view the bay and mountains.  It was rebuilt in the early 1990s as a replica of the original pier that was used to load rice and taro onto ships.  Remnants of narrow-gauge railway tracks can still be seen in the parking lot in front of the pier.

 

A historic incident occurred in 1824 in the middle of the bay, where the Wai‘oli Stream flows out.  Kamehameha II bartered $90,000 worth of the kingdom's sandalwood to buy the fastest and finest yacht in the world.  Officially named, Pride of Hawaii, it was popularly known as Cleopatra's Barge.  While the king was visiting England, the reputedly inexperienced and irresponsible crew took the king's yacht to Hanalei Bay where they ran aground on a reef.  Hawaiians from all over the island gathered at Hanalei Bay to try to save the royal craft.  They strung cables of hau bark to the masts and at a given signal everyone on land heaved and pulled.  The crew pulled the yacht onto its side where it lay until it broke up in the waves.  In 1995, researchers from the Smithsonian Institution began a search for the long-lost wreck.  They were successful and over three years recovered about a thousand rare artifacts that helped tell the story of what life was like in the early days of the Hawaiian Kingdom.

Standing predominantly, next to the highway in the center of town is the Wai‘oli Hui‘ia Church.  The green wooden church retains an airy Pacific Islands feel with large windows that open outward and a high, sharply pitched roof.  The bell tower houses the original mission church bell brought from Boston in 1843.  Built in 1912, the quaint structure is on the National Register of historic places and is a favorite subject of artists.  The church doors are left open and you are welcome to look inside.  Services in both English and Hawaiian are held at 10:00 a.m. on Sundays.

 

Hanalei's first missionaries, the Reverend and Mrs. William Alexander, arrived aboard a double-hulled canoe in 1834 to establish the Wai‘oli Mission.   They built the Wai‘oli Mission Hall in 1841, which stands next to the church.  The timber frame building is the oldest surviving church building on Kauai.  The Mission Hall is distinguished by its wrap-around lanai and high, double-pitched roof, which provides for shade and ventilation.  It is a notable example of the adaptation of New England building traditions to Hawaiian culture and climate. The Alexanders lived in a grass hut for three years before they built a New England-style house.  In 1846, Abner and Lucy Wilcox took residence in the house and it has been associated with the pre-eminent Kauai family ever since.  The missionaries' home is now the Wai‘oli Mission House Museum and is open to public tours.  The two-storey, white clapboard house is large and simple.  Wood moldings adorn windows and doorways.  The original koa wood floor, long ago destroyed by termites, was replaced with Douglas fir boards 12 inches wide.  A separate cookhouse was built and subsequently attached to the main house to serve as the kitchen and pantry.  Daguerreotype photographs of Lucy and Abner Wilcox adorn the walls of the parlor.  Lucy had a friendly and sympathetic face; Abner resembled Henry Fonda.  A bookcase is full of the leather-bound books read by the family 150 years ago.  Upstairs, the guest bedroom housed visiting missionaries and was dubbed the "room of the traveling prophet."  Looking through the wavy glass of the windowpanes you'll view spacious grounds and gardens.  Taro grows in plots behind the house in the Wai‘oli Valley.  Take away the power lines and the scene is the same as the time the house was built.  Around the house are china and artifacts such as a butter churn, spinning wheel and a pie safe built from zinc tiles recycled when the roof was re-covered with wood shakes.  Guided tours are given Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.  There is no admission charge but donations are accepted.  The parking area is reached by turning mauka onto the gravel driveway between the Mission Hall and Hanalei School.

 

End Of The Road

 

As you leave Hanalei the road follows the curve of the bay crossing three more one-lane bridges and the Wai‘oli and Waipa Streams.  Just after leaving sight of Hanalei Bay, the road takes a sharp bend to the left and several cars will likely be parked along the side of the road.  This is the start of the trail down to Lumaha‘i Beach (see Beaches chapter).  Right at mile marker five there are two viewpoints of Lumaha‘i Beach.  You'll get a better view from the second as trees have grown to obscure much of the beach from the first viewpoint.  Yet another viewpoint is a short distance ahead.  This one looks over the west end of Lumaha‘i Beach.  The Lumaha‘i Valley contains the largest landholding on Kauai of the Bishop Estate.

The Wainiha Valley is the longest valley on Kauai, extending 14 miles from its headland at the Alaka‘i Swamp to the sea.  Wainiha means "hostile waters" and its name warns of the floods that occur in the narrow, steep-sided valley during torrential rains.  At the Wainiha River, you are treated to the most scenic of the narrow bridges.  Two white wooden bridges cross the river offering a terrific photo opportunity.  The two bridges should be treated as one when waiting for traffic to clear.  Immediately after the bridges is a side road that travels 1.8 miles up the valley to the Wainiha hydroelectric station.  The waterfalls of Wainiha Valley have been generating electrical power since the McBryde Sugar Company built the station in 1906.  Power lines from the plant climb the cliff of the valley's headland and cross the island to ‘Ele‘ele and Waimea.  Wainiha has a very small roadside general store.  It is the last place on the north shore that you can buy beverages, food, snacks and shave ice.

 

Next along the road is the idyllic region of Ha‘ena.  Everyone's expectations of a South Seas' tropical paradise is fulfilled here.  The narrow road slowly cuts through artists' scenes of curving beaches shaded by coconut palms and jagged mountains clothed in lush foliage and veiled in mist and mystery.

The last resort (literally) on the north shore is the Hanalei Colony Resort.  It has recently been renovated and includes the upscale restaurant, Surts on the Beach.   The reason many of the houses here are built on stilts is for protection from tsunamis.  The great tsunami of 1946 slammed against this low-lying coast, destroying every building and tree in its path with a wave that crested at 45 feet.  

 

Ha‘ena Beach County Park just before mile marker nine has parking, bathrooms, showers, picnic tables and grills.  Camping is allowed by permit.  The campground is cleared every Monday for maintenance and to prevent campers from taking up residency.  A lunch wagon is usually parked at the park and sells fresh fruit, sandwiches and beverages.

Thousands of years ago when sea level was higher, waves carved three caves, one dry and two wet, into the cliffs between Ha‘ena and Ke‘e.  The dry cave is directly across the road from Ha‘ena Park.  Maniniholo Dry Cave has a wide entrance and broad ceiling.  Water drips sporadically onto the dirt floor. It is called Maniniholo, after the head fisherman of the Menehune people.

 

A Hawaiian legend tells of two brothers and a sister who traveled throughout the world in the form of rocks. They came to the reef at Ha‘ena where the sister remained.  The rock could be seen on the reef until the tsunami of 1946 washed it away.  The two brothers continued their journey onto land where one brother decided to stop and rest near the puhala trees.  That rock is called Pohakuloa and lies prominently, next to the road around the bend from mile marker nine.  The other brother attempted to climb the steep cliff to the mountain peak, but because of his round shape he kept rolling back.  The god Kāne saw his struggle and reached down and lifted the rock onto the peak.  This rock is called Pōhakuokâne and can be seen sitting on the mountain peak, 1,800 feet above its brother rock.  Should Pōhakuokâne ever fall from its perch, it is said the sea will rise to the height of Kāne.  

 

As you drive through a couple of more curves in the road, the unmistakably prominent, triangular peak of Makana comes into view.  The sharply rising faces, jagged spires and pointed peak gave it the mystical qualities the makers of South Pacific were looking for when they portrayed it as the fictitious South Seas mountain called Bali Hai.  Through special effects, advanced for the 1950s, Makana Peak was lifted from its Ha‘ena location to an offshore vista.  The name of Bali Hai stuck and is used locally, especially with commercial concerns.  Ancient Hawaiians used Makana Peak as the setting for their version of a light show.  They would climb the precipitous ridges of Makana carrying firebrands, which were pieces of dried hau or papala wood whose core was soft and thus burned before the outer layers.  At the summit, they would hurl the burning firebrands off the mountain.  If conditions were right, the wind would carry the flaming torches and their trail of embers out to sea.  People crowded the beach below and waited in canoes to watch the spectacle.

The last valley before the Na Pali coast is Limahuli.  An interesting visit here is the Limahuli Garden, one of the three National Tropical Botanical Gardens on Kauai.  Mrs. Juliet Rice Wichman, who wanted this valley preserved as a vestige of ancient Hawaii, donated the land and garden to the NTBG in 1976.  In 1994, her grandson, Charles Wichman, established the Limahuli Reserve by his gift of the adjoining 985 acres in the valley.  The garden is built around a Hawaiian terrace system estimated to be at least 700 years old.  Water from Limahuli Stream is diverted to sustain plantings of rare native and introduced plants and trees.  Besides appreciating their beauty, Hawaiians utilized the plants for their medicinal and nutritional qualities.  The American Horticulture Society bestowed Limahuli Garden with its award for the best natural botanical garden in the United States.  Guided and self-guided tours are available by reservation only.  Phone 826-1053 well in advance.  The garden is open Tuesday to Friday and again on Sunday from 9:30 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.

 

After you cross Limahuli Stream there is a parking lot on State Park land.  If the parking area at Ke‘e Beach is full it is used as the overflow lot.  On the other side of the road from the parking lot is a small clearing where about four cars can park and the start of a 150-yard-trail to the first of two wet caves along this road.  The first is called Waikapala‘e Wet Cave and the second is Waikanaloa Wet Cave.  Swimmers in Waikapala‘e will find the water deep and cold.  At the back wall of the cave, on the right side, is the entrance to a hidden chamber.  The entrance is about ten feet long and the chamber is about 8 feet across.  With a low ceiling and no good hand-holds, the hidden chamber is not for those with an aversion to close spaces.  Look above the cave's entrance at the sheer cliff wall for a good example of a volcanic dike.  Rising vertically across the horizontal layers is lava rock between a foot and three feet wide.  Movement within the earth's crust split the hardened lava into a vertical fissure.  Later, lava flows filled the fissure and hardened into a wall-like mass.  The Waikanaloa Wet Cave is a tenth of a mile further ahead and is right next to the road.

 

A short distance from the wet caves is the end of the road and Ke‘e Beach.  A path covered by almond trees at the left side of the beach leads to two of Hawaii's most celebrated heiau dedicated to teaching hula.  An overgrown section of flat land formed by the remains of a stone wall are what is left of the Kaulu a Laka Heiau, dedicated to Laka, the goddess of the hula.  Fifty yards beyond where the sand turns to boulders is the Kaulu a Paoa Heiau.  Stone terraces rise above the shoreline.  The halau, or long hall, in which the hula was performed was built on the upper terrace.  A rock trail ascends the mountainside for 150 yards to the upper terrace.  Here, with a commanding view of the sea and Ke‘e Beach and with the green and black peak of Makana towering above, aspiring students came from all the islands to learn the hula.  Young people were taught the traditions, chants and dances that told the stories of their ancestors.  They were subjected to strict rules and kapus during their time of training.  At graduation, the students were required to swim from the lagoon at Ke‘e, through the channel, and come ashore in the cove behind the heiau called Nāhiki, where waves surge against the rocks on even the calmest day.  To survive the test required that the shark that was fed by a chiefess spare them.  It was said that students who broke any of the strict kapus were devoured and those without fault came ashore and climbed the rocks back to the heiau.  The hālau hula at this site was used until the 1920s.

 

On the rocky shoreline at the bottom of the trail that leads up to the terraces is a deeply furrowed rock named Kilioe.  The basalt boulder is still used as a pohaku piko, or a place for umbilical cords.  An infant's umbilical cord is wrapped in a leaf and wedged under the rock or in a crack.  The fate of the cord is supposed to foretell the events of the child's life.

 

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