On our 2nd afternoon in Kokee we planned on completing the Kalepa Ridge Trail. I’d seen photos of the trail with incredible views across Kalalau valley so was pretty keen on completing this one. The rules regarding this one can get a little fuzzy. It’s not noted as an official trail, and there were warnings about this trail being dangerous and how it shouldn’t be done. Kauai seemed to have a really odd way of saying that things shouldn’t be done, but not actually saying they can’t be done. Everywhere we went people were doing trails/hikes ignoring signs saying not to do them. We also kept meeting locals doing this exact same thing that said it was totally fine. I’ll leave this one up to your discretion.

The start of the Kalepa Ridge trail is from the Kalalau Lookout. You need to go to the left and scoot around the backside of the fence of the lookout to reach the start of the trail. It cuts down to the left and was marked with pink ribbon at the time we completed it.

We were met with a white out most of the hike to the viewpoint. Things weren’t looking great for us but patience usually pays off. We found the weather/clouds changed that frequently on Kauai, and you could usually wait around and see a difference after a bit of time.

We ended up sitting and waiting for 30-45 mins until it would finnally clear up. The views accross the valley where EPIC with a few the white lines of waterfalls poking their heads out every so often when cloud cover would clear up. I had really come to love the natural beauty of Kauai.

This is Kira Happy because the clouds disappeared.

The clouds kept coming and going but ended up adding to the mood sitting on top of the ridge.

We also met a local who was showing some visiting Americans the trail. Surprisingly enough we would witness a guy propose to his partner randomly while they stood at the back of the group.

After waiting out for a while we decided to make the hike back before it got to dark. The sky continued to change colour and made for quite the impressive sunset.

I’ll have a hard time forgetting the moment spent standing here watching the sunset over the valley.

We made our way back to the carpark and headed down the road to camp at the official Kokee National Park campground for the night. There was toilets and unheated showers here.

The next morning we got on the road again and headed back down south out of Kokee National Park briefly making the stop @ Waimea Canyon again. We would be headed back to the capital Lihue to make our chopper ride that afternoon.

One of the must-do things for us on Kauai is to take a helicopter ride along the Na Pali Coastline and around Kauai. There’s a few different companies that do scenic flights and it was really hard to choose one. We definitely wanted a doors off one so we could shoot photos without any glare and ended up going with Mauna Loa Helicopter Tours. After changing our chopper ride time at least 3 times (weather is so hard to judge on Kauai) we ended up deciding on 3pm. Cloud cover can be bad along the Na Pali Coast in the afternoon but we really wanted to try and get some good late afternoon light without it being overexposed. Our choice ended up being spot on and we got perfect weather for our whole flight. Mauna Lao runs two types of flights : one is a generic Kauai tourist flight and the other a photography flight. Whilst coming in at almost $950 Australian dollars for an hour flight, we had the luxury of having the chopper to ourselves and being able to tell him exactly where we wanted him to go within reason. This would end up being in my top 5 experiences I have ever had so was worth every cent and I’d happily do it again.

We met at the Mauna Lao headquarters and took a short shuttle ride to the the airport. We would meet our pilot, and after a short discussion on what we where hoping to achieve/shoot on the flight, we where off. We cut straight across to Waimea Canyon.

We wound in and out of the canyon which made for one hell of a ride.

The famous Manawaiopuna Falls aka Jurassic falls. This is where they land the helicopter and hop into the jeeps in the original Jurassic Park

From Waimea Canyon we cut accross to the Na Pali Coast.

It was incredible to see the Na Pali Coastline from the air. Its hard to describe how amazing it is in real life and sadly photos will never do it justice.

We would continue along the coastline heading past Hanalei and started headed inland before Princeville.

Now this next part i would defiently never be able to explain with words, and i spent the time actually enjoying what i was seeing in front of me so dont actually have that many amazing photos of it. It is a bit of a dead end here. Sometimes i really do need to just put down the camera and actually enjoy what im seeing. I’ll try my best to explain how this next bit played out.

Near the centre of Kauai is the weeping wall : it is made up of multiple waterfalls that cascade down the different grooves of Mount Waialeale. The mountain is awe-inspiring enough by itself with its walls that reach 1544m into the sky, but is made all that more incredible because it is littered with white lines of waterfalls leading to the blue hole/weeping wall. The weeping wall is exactly what it sounds like : its an incredible amount of waterfalls in one place making its way down one very large rockface. As this is one of the wettest places in the world its not hard to figure out where all the water comes from making up this incredible spectacle.

You can spot the yellow helicopter in both of these shots giving some form of scale to this valley.

The weeping wall itself.

From the weeping wall we shot straight back to the airport, landing just as the rain started to come in. Perfect timing!

We ended up camping in a private campground on this night on the east coast called “ Kumu Beach camp retreat”. It had super good showers and we had a nice little allocated spot right on the beach.

The next day we ended up cruising up the coast again heading towards Hanalei stopping off at a few beaches on the way. It was a fairly cruisy but much needed rest day.

Also of note : Hanakāpīʻai Beach isnt the only beach you shouldn’t swim at on Kauai. Make sure you hede the warnings from the locals with all the beaches: the death tally signs are a quick indication that you shouldnt be swimming at some of them. Cannons Beach/Tunnels Beach on the north side of Kauai is a really good place for swimming and there is also plenty of snorkelling here.

That afternoon we headed to the Smith Family Garden Lauau for dinner and a show. Both of us where keen to see something a bit more traditional in Hawaii and a Luau seemed like the best way to delve a little deeper into Hawaiian culture. We had one booked for the previous night at “ Ahi Lele Luau Fire Show” but for whatever reason it ended up getting cancelled. The Smith Lauau would end up being our second choice.

It was quite obvious as soon as we arrived how popular this particular one would be. After walking into the entrance we would quickly be shuffled on to the tourist train and would do a trip around the large gardens they had setup.

After our little train ride, we where allowed to venture around the gardens while waiting for dinner to be served. No suprise but there was heaps of chickens everywhere like the rest of Kauai.

The dinner buffet was actually really good and there was a “all you could drink” style bar setup serving mojitos and basic alchohols (I had to drive sadly as we where staying in Lihue this night, so remained sober). There was also entertainment for the full duration of dinner by a three peice band.

After the buffet we where all then ushered up to what happened to be a fully setup entertaining area comprising of grand stand style seating in front of a large stage.

Now to be honest : i wasnt 100% sure of what to expect from this show. I had orginally hoped for a traditional experience into Hawaiin culture : in my head something more like a guy playing a Ukulele on a beach while a few locals did the Luau in a more intermit experience. From the onset, walking into the gates it was obvious that the main design of this place was to take in the largest amount of tourists they possibly could while spending heaps on special effects for a “Theme Park” style show. The show was still entertaining and they did really try to spend time explaining how the different culture came to be one in Hawaii, but there was just something really odd about the show that i didnt like. Generally i would say most tourists would enjoy it though.

BUT FIRE.

After missing the actual fire show, we at least got to see a little bit of it in this one.

This would be our last night spent in Kauai. We stayed at the same Air BNB in Lihue that we did the first night.

The next day we would have an early start - our time in Kauai had come to an end and we where headed to Oahu. After dropping Goldie Hawn off in the airport carpark, we boarded our flight and did another short trip back to Honolulu.

I’ll finish up our trip to Hawaii in a third part covering Oahu soon.

Kauai : The Real Life Jurrasic Park - Part 2