Lush, green, beautiful: this is how people describe the island of Kauai. Dating back some five million years, Kauai is the oldest of the eight major islands that make up the US state of Hawaii, situated in the Pacific Ocean about 2,500 miles off the west coast of America. Known as the Garden Isle, it is a magical place of tropical vistas, dense rainforests, deep valleys and cascading waterfalls.
Kauai: the oldest of Hawaiian islands
Fire and water
Kauai has 113 miles of coastline, almost half of which is made up of golden sand beaches, while its interior is a remote mountainous region, descending to grand plains stretching out to the coast. Mount Waialeale is situated at the centre of the island; this extinct volcano is one of the wettest places on Earth. The summit, more than five thousand feet up, receives around 450 inches of rain a year. You can take a helicopter tour into the Waialeale Crater, the spiritual center of the ancient Hawaiian culture. It is a sublime setting surrounded by spectacular waterfalls.
An adventure
Although it rains every day in Kauai, most of it falls on the island’s north and east shores, while the south and west shores remaindry and sunny. You can spend a day swimming, snorkeling and surfing off one of the island’s many idyllic beaches; hike through Waimea Canyon, a geological marvel known as the Grand Canyon of the Pacific, or take a boat ride along the Napali Coast, a land of magnificent cliffs and inaccessible valleys. With most of the island underdeveloped and uninhabited, Kauai is the ideal place for the adventurous to explore.
Chickens and waterfalls
Kauai is the second-largest island in the Hawaiian archipelago. Of all the family activities on offer, a trip to Smith’s Tropical Paradise on the island’s east side is one of the most breathtaking. This thirty-acre botanical and cultural garden is located on the Wailua River, the island’s largest and longest waterway. The garden is home to many species of birds, including the native goose nene. Colourful fish swim in its lagoons, and there are twenty varieties of fruit growing on its trees, including mangoes, avocados and dragon fruit.
Visitors can take a two-mile boat ride along the river to a beautiful ferngrotto, before returning to the garden in the evening for a traditional Hawaiian luau, a cultural event in which visitors experience the sights, sounds and tastes of Hawaii. Speak Up visited Smith’s Tropical Paradise where we spoke to general manager and family member Kamika Smith. He began by telling us more about Kauai Island.
Kamika Smith (Ame- rican accent): The island is known as the Garden Island of Hawaii, and mainly because of its green and lushness. But you still have green, lush jungle area on the north side, and then if you go to the west side, there’s the Waimea Canyon, which is dry, similar to a desert. So the clouds come in from the north and then they drop all their rain pretty much in the north and in the center of the island, the mountain known as Waialeale, which is one of the wettest spots on Earth.
So once the rainclouds hit that, they dump all of their rain there, and they’ll continue on. By then they get to the other side, there’s no rain left, so it’s a rain shadow. So that side of the island, not as much rain. The island of Kauai is well known for its lush beauty, natural landscapes, beautiful beaches. It’s the oldest island... inhabited island in the state of Hawaii.
Wild chickens
There are many chickens on Kauai, we asked Smith why.
Kamika Smith: There are many chickens, roosters here. Back, probably about twenty-five years ago, we had a hurricane, the hurricane knocked the coops down, the chickens got out and there’s really no way to control them because it’s so nice and green and lush here that you can’t find their nests. There are many chickens that lay eggs and you can’t find them, and so they’ll have more and more chickens. There’s also no predators here for the birds, which is nice in a way because we still have animals, or birds, that were here when the ancient Hawaiians were here, that they used to use for their feathered cloaks. There are still those types of birds still present on Kauai.
An adopted home
While the majority of the local birds are not native, they have adapted to life on the island, said Smith.
Kamika Smith: Native birds that we have here, there’s just a few, and they had to be brought in, so those ones that were brought in actually adapted to the location. So we have a duck here known as the ‘koloa duck’. It is native now because it went through a transformation so much that it’s different from other ducks.
There’s also a goose called a ‘nene goose’, that is our state bird, and normally they are flightless on the Big Island, [but] on Kauai, they fly. So, they were brought to other islands so they would be able to propagate more. So the birds that were brought to Kauai eventually learned how to fly and they’re flying between spots on the island where they can get food.
The volcano
Mount Waialeale is a key landmark, but a difficult climb said Smith.
Kamika Smith: So it’s tough to get up there. There are some hikes that I’ve seen people go up, with social media, probably not the safest thing to do, but most people will go and see Waialeale via a helicopter tour or an air tour. The helicopters will go and hover in the center of the crater, it’s an extinct volcano, which one side has been blown out. And what’s amazing is that you are surrounded by waterfalls. They call it the Weeping Wall because you see waterfalls all the way around you. So I’ve been on a helicopter tour before and it’s been just amazing. There is a swamp up there [on the summit] called Alakai Swamp and that’s one of the largest swamps in the state, and it’s just boggy. It’s similar to Ireland I think, where you have a lot of marshy types of areas, where there’s still a lot of native Hawaiian birds that live up there as well too.
An historic tour
A favourite activity among visitors is a river cruise around the fern grotto. Smith spoke more about it.
Kamika Smith: The river cruise takes you up the Wailua River, which is one of the larger rivers in the state of Hawaii. And it’s one of the only rivers that you can actually take a boat on because it’s large enough to do that. The boat tour started with my grandparents. My Grandma and Grandpa started it back in 1946, after the war, and they started with the little row boat and a little outboard motor and they took two people at a time up the river to see a cave with ferns hanging down from the top of it. So it’s called the fern grotto and we used to have a lot of weddings up there. The weddings up there has [have] a beautiful jungle-type of atmosphere with the cave and the backdrop with small waterfalls falling right behind them as well, too.
Spiritual bond
And, said Smith, visitors usually feel an immediate connection to Kauai.
Kamika Smith: They come to Kauai and they feel that there’s a spiritual draw, so they feel that they were drawn to Kauai, and when they get here, they just feel that they’re in a healthy location, so they feel refreshed. They like to rejuvenate themselves here.