After a brief stop to check out the Kilauea lighthouse, we drove south to Lihue.
Mom was supposed to do our helicopter tour with us. She arrived separately, and we spoke to the woman at the check-in desk, who told us that winds were high over Waimea Canyon and the Na Pali Coast, and it would be bumpy, maybe a little frightening, but perfectly safe. She gave us the option of rescheduling to next week, going ahead and flying in the wind, or cancelling. We wouldn’t be there in a week, so that left the other two options. Anthony and I chose to fly, but Mom decided against it (I can’t blame her. I was tempted to cancel as well).
We got shuttled over to our take-off point, and before long, we were climbing into the helicopter and putting our headsets on. We were going to fly doors off, so I put my flannel on to stay warm while we were up in the air.
It was definitely scary starting out. This was our first helicopter ride, and it was pretty shaky from the beginning. Anthony gripped the bar in front of him and instantly looked like he regretted his decision (he’s typically a more adventurous soul than I am, but heights are the one area that I handle better). My stomach clenched, but it didn’t take long at all for me to relax into it and be more than distracted by the gorgeous scenery underneath us.
We flew over and into Waimea Canyon, and even with the clouds, at that moment, I couldn’t imagine anything in my life prior that looked as beautiful.
We flew out over the water and along the Na Pali Coast, getting every angle of it we could.
Zipping into and out of the crevices.
Making a 360 degree turn at the edge.
We flew through Hanapepe Valley with lush green and tall waterfalls all around us.
It was one of the greatest experiences in all my travels, even with the bumps and the camera issues (be sure to charge your batteries, people!!!).
We flew back across the island, this time appreciating the different trees, and had a perfectly smooth landing to finish it out.
It was time for the south coast portion of our trip. We drove down to Shipwreck Beach to do the Makawehi Lithified Cliffs hike.
The hike was really pretty, looking out over the water splashing against the cliffs.
However, my hiking sandals kept capturing all the sand between the bottom of my feet and the sandal, and it would not come out until I sat down and took my sandals off to shake it out. I really regretted my decision to wear them, so don’t make the same mistake.
We turned back to the beach and found our car. We drove into Poipu for dinner, still thinking about the incoming hurricane, but still without enough information to make a decision on when to fly out. At this point, airlines were offering travel waivers for people to change their flights to or from the islands, but American had not yet offered a waiver for the date that we were to fly out, instead expecting us to stay sitting ducks on a small island during the hurricane.
We drove to our campsite for the night, which is a pretty secret place that, out of respect to Kauai Overlander who shared the information with us, I won’t post on here. We parked our truck in a little clearing between trees and then walked a short distance down a path to the cliffs’ edge to take in the sunset. The location is known to have a gorgeous sunrise, but seeing the sun tint the mountains to the east orange was pretty spectacular as well.
We sat there and enjoyed a couple drinks before climbing up into our tent for the night.
That night, the wind was strong. We barely slept at all due to the wind shaking our tent and causing this awful flapping noise. It was after midnight when we dozed off, and shortly after that, it started raining into the tent on us. We closed up our windows and doors, and dozed back off, waking up to new sounds and annoyances throughout the night.
My alarm went off at 5 am so that we could get ready, catch the sunrise, drink coffee, and get to scuba diving by 7.
But instead of any of that, I went into full-blown panic mode. Hurricane Lane was now a category 5, still heading our way. We were officially in a Hurricane Watch. Anyone that knows me knows that I do not handle storms well. We were in the middle of an EF5 tornado years ago, and since then, I can barely handle the sound of wind blowing. I started frantically searching for flights out, but they were all taken. I was looking for anything, as long as it got us off the islands. Flights to San Francisco. Flights to San Diego. Flights to Los Angeles. Flights to Phoenix. Flights to Seattle. Flights to Dallas. Flights to Denver. Nothing, except tickets that cost over $1,000 per person and required a layover in one of the other islands that would be getting hit first, was available. American Airlines still was not offering a waiver for our flight date for some unknown reason, but at that point, I didn’t care. I wanted anything. We spent the morning on the phone with American, with our credit card company Chase, and then every other airline I could think of, while I continuously refreshed Google Flights hoping something new would show up.
We missed out on our scuba diving trip. Instead, we sat in the parking lot of a grocery store, where locals were raiding the aisles for water and toilet paper. We found no flights that would work. I finally accepted the fact that I was accomplishing nothing and was wasting the little bit of time I had left to enjoy the island before storms hit.
We knew we were going to have to change our plans and would not be able to camp our last couple nights up in Koke’e as we had originally expected, so instead, we did a short road trip up the Waimea Canyon to Koke’e, taking in the viewpoints along the way.
We saw the campground that we would have stayed at and saw the markers for various hikes we would have gone on, and my heart broke a little because it all looked lovely. But still, the drive itself was nice, and we slowly made our way back down.
We went back into town a little to eat some lunch. While there, we decided we officially needed to make some plans for getting to safety instead of being stuck in our truck and tent for a hurricane. Anthony booked a hotel for our last two nights, and I finally found a flight that would get us as far as Phoenix a day and a half earlier than planned, for a reasonable price, so I booked that as well. We now had back up plans upon back up plans.
Feeling a bit better about the situation, we drove on out to Polihale. The drive is down a rough gravel road to the beach, and most rental car companies do not allow you to make the journey. Ours did, however, so off we went. We drove through the sand to find a nice camping spot that had a good view and was close to the restrooms.
Polihale was almost certainly the most beautiful beach I’ve seen. It’s completely undeveloped, so the long, wide stretch of sand is not interrupted by any hotels or resorts. The northern edge of it backs up to the cliffs of the Na Pali coast.
The bottom of my feet burned on the hot sand as they sank in, but I couldn’t keep away. The waves were far too strong to attempt walking along the water.
The beach faces west, so we had a spectacular sunset that evening.
At our campsite, we cooked dinner and just relaxed. The beach worked its magic in easing my tension from the day, and I mostly slept peacefully that night, only waking up to check the most recent NOAA forecasts a couple times.
It was still dark out when we woke up, but we started brewing coffee, taking our showers, and getting our truck ready to be returned. Since we were going to be hunkering down in a hotel starting that afternoon, there was no reason for us to keep the truck, and Kauai Overlander was kind enough to take it back and refund our last couple nights.
I sat on a rock, taking in the view while I drank my coffee, trying to really be there in the moment of our last morning camping.
The state was closing all of their parks starting that day, so we drove on out before guards came to escort anyone remaining past the gates.
We drove back along the south coast through quite a bit of rain, eventually meeting up with my parents for a late breakfast in Lihue on the east coast. They were flying out that evening and were about to explore a little bit before going to the airport.
Once we left them, we went to our hotel in Kapa’a, and they let us check in. They gave us a “complimentary upgrade” … to a room that had a great view of the incoming storms. I spent most of that day going back and forth between watching the news, and checking my phone. Things were looking less dire. The hurricane was now a category 3, and it looked like it may stay south of Kauai. I started second-guessing whether we actually wanted to fly out the next morning, to our layover in Honolulu which looked like it’d be getting hit around the time we were there.
But alas, morning hit, Hurricane Lane was now only category 2, and was moving slow enough that even Oahu wasn’t expecting to really feel the effects until that evening. It certainly looked like a hurricane was coming outside our hotel though. We sat outside watching the high surf and the dark clouds. After just a few minutes, it was pouring rain, wind making it nearly horizontal, and we had to escape back to the indoors.
We got our stuff together and caught an Uber to the airport. The roads were dead, everyone already in hibernation mode, and many businesses closed. We kept expecting one or both of our flights to be cancelled at any moment, not feeling secure enough to call our hotel and cancel our stay that night until we were actually on the plane.
The flight was bumpy, and our pilot sounded nervous, but we made it safely to Honolulu. Once there, we again kept checking to see if our flight out was still scheduled. About 15 minutes before take-off, we finally decided it was safe to book lodging in Phoenix. I found an AirBnB just a short drive from the airport that looked nice and had all 5 star reviews, so I jumped on it, while Anthony worked on renting a car.
Our original return flight from Hawaii had a layover in Phoenix on Sunday morning. We decided we would just go ahead and stay in Phoenix Friday and Saturday nights, and then still take the Phoenix to KC leg of our original flight. Apparently, that was naïve thinking. More on that later!