Day 11: East Coast Sightseeing

Because of the way the mountains of Kauai are, the East Side has a great number of waterfalls and rivers. We drove down and started with a drive out to the heiau (temple ruins) and Opaeka’a Falls lookout. There were also lookouts for the Wailua River, a good sized river where kiyakers and boaters abound.

We then drove to the lookout for the Wailua Falls. We contemplated hiking down to the bottom of these falls, but the state had put up so many danger warning signs and fences etc, that we decided not to bother. We also were probably not feeling as adventurous as we usually feel, still shaking off the remnants of our 11 mile trek.

Our next stop was Kipu Falls, a shorter waterfall backed by a ring of cliff that preportedly has a rope swing and a big pool for swimming. In our guide book, it described how to get there and warned that some of the land you passed over to get there was privately owned, so go at your own risk. We planned on boulder hopping up the stream to the falls to stay off the land as much as possible.

When we arrived at the turnouts for parking on the side of the road, there were a lot of cars, so we felt very reassured that we could trespass without incident (hey, everyone else was too). We had no sooner parked our car when a cop car came flying up the road.

He was parked a little ways up from our car, so Bill decided to go talk to him to see if he was OK with us going to the falls and to see what if anything was going on. This cop informed Bill that the property owner had called him, so he had come out to talk to him, but that he then got the call that there had been a bunch of car break-ins of the cars parked there to go the falls. He told Bill that he would not be ticketing or fining him if we went to the falls, but that he suspected that there were people just sitting in the woods waiting for no one to be around and then breaking in to all the tourists’ cars, so be warned this could happen to us.

We were a little bummed. There are some property owners in Hawaii who go to great lengths to keep people from enjoying whatever natural phenomena because people have to cross over a little of their property to get there. This was case with the Blue Pool on Maui. What these property owners SHOULD do is just set up a little booth and charge a buck to get in and make some money on the inevitable, while letting people enjoy some really cool things. If people wanted to cross my property to get to some amazing thing, I think I would be inclined to let them, and would set it up in such a way that they could get there, and still keep my privacy for my house.

Anyway, so much for the rope swing adventure. We would have been very dumb to take the risk of a break in, so we did not go. By the time we had talked and were ready to leave, there were a total of four cop cars and a lot of mayhem going on. We got out while the getting was good.

We then spent the afternoon at Lydgate Beach Park on the East coast. I took a nap while Bill snorkeled, and then we snorkeled together. They have an enclosed boulder section protecting you from the surf, and there are plenty of fish to see. This would also be a great safe way for kids to practice snorkeling.

Dinner was at Coconuts on the east coast, which was a very tasty restaurant, then home to pack for our camping trip.