Frommer's Kauai - Jeanette Foster [4]
• Hanalei Beach: Gentle waves roll across the face of half-moon Hanalei Bay, running up to the wide, golden sand. Sheer volcanic ridges laced by waterfalls rise to 4,000 feet on the other side, 3 miles inland. Is there any beach with a better location? Celebrated in song and hula and featured on travel posters, this beach owes its natural beauty to its age—it’s an ancient sunken valley with post-erosional cliffs. Hanalei Bay indents the coast a full mile inland and runs 2 miles point to point, with coral reefs on either side and a patch of coral in the middle—plus a sunken ship that belonged to a king, so divers love it. Swimming is excellent year-round, especially in summer, when Hanalei Bay becomes a big, placid lake. The aquamarine water is also great for bodyboarding, surfing, fishing, windsurfing, canoe paddling, kayaking, and boating. (There’s a boat ramp on the west bank of the Hanalei River.)
• Haena Beach: Backed by verdant cliffs, this curvaceous North Shore beach has starred as paradise in many a movie. It’s easy to see why Hollywood loves Haena Beach, with its grainy golden sand and translucent turquoise waters. Summer months bring calm waters for swimming and snorkeling, while winter brings mighty waves for surfers. There are plenty of facilities on hand, including picnic tables, restrooms, and showers.
2 The Best Kauai Experiences
• Hitting the Beach: A beach is a beach is a beach, right? Not on Kauai. With 50 miles of beaches, Kauai offers ocean experiences in all shapes and forms. You can go to a different beach every day during your vacations and still not get tired of seeing them. See chapter 7.
• Taking the Plunge: Rent a mask, fins, and snorkel, and enter a magical underwater world. Facedown, you’ll float like a leaf on a pond, watching brilliant fish dart here and there in water clear as day; a slow-moving turtle may even stop by to check you out. Faceup, you’ll contemplate green-velvet cathedral-like cliffs under a blue sky, with long-tailed tropical birds riding the trade winds. See chapter 7.
• Meeting Local Folks: If you go to Kauai and see only people like the ones back home, you might as well not have come. Extend yourself—leave your hotel, go out and meet the locals, and learn about Hawaii and its people. Just smile and say “Howzit?”—which means “How is it?” (“It’s good,” is the usual response—and you may make a new friend.) Hawaii is remarkably cosmopolitan; every ethnic group in the world seems to be represented here. There’s a huge diversity of food, culture, language, and customs.
• Feeling History Come Alive: It is possible to walk back in history on Kauai. You can see ancient, ancient history, from the times when the menehune were around, at the Menehune Ditch and Menehune Fishpond. Or experience Hawaiian history at the Kauai Museum, the archaeological sites at Wailua River State Park, and the Ka Ulu O Laka heiau. For more recent history since the arrival of Captain Cook, check out the Grove Farm Homestead Museum, Kilohana, and the Waioli Mission House Museum. See chapter 8.
• Exploring the Grand Canyon of the Pacific: The great gaping gulch known as Waimea Canyon is quite a sight. This valley, known for its reddish lava beds, reminds everyone who sees it of the Grand Canyon. Kauai’s version is bursting with ever-changing color, just like its namesake, but it’s smaller—only a mile wide, 3,567 feet deep, and 12 miles long. A massive earthquake sent streams into the single river that ultimately carved this picturesque canyon. Today, the Waimea River—a silver thread of water in the gorge that’s sometimes a trickle, often a torrent, but always there—keeps cutting the canyon deeper and wider, and nobody can say what the result will