Kauai Day 2: Kalalau trail, Hanalei river, and rain

This our the view from the kitchen window, chickens and all.  

We started our morning checking out the venue for the wedding, which is a short walk on the beach from our house.  Then we drove ten minutes to the end of the highway to hike Kalalau trail.  

Houses on stilts reminds me that we are far away from home.  

Until a few years ago you could swim through Waikanaloa Cave to another cave called the Blue Room but now 'no swimming' signs are posted everywhere.  The water level is too low and there have been too many visitors.  

 The only land access through this part of the Na Pali coast is on the Kalalau trail, which is 22 miles round trip.  We hiked only a small part of the trail but we saw many people along the way who were backpacking.  

After our hike Fred took a dip in the ocean before we met up with friends to paddle board on the Hanalei river.  

We had to stop for shave ice.  I got strawberry, passion fruit, guava, and pineapple with macadamia ice cream at the bottom.  The ice cream has huge pieces of macadamia.  Wow.  

Fred's friend Erwin, two of Erwin's friends from San Diego, Fred and I all rented paddle boards instead of kayaking as we had originally planned.  It definitely added an element of 'Hawaii'.  As soon as we started paddling it started pouring.  There were small breaks in the downpour throughout our paddle but I have never been outside in rain like this before.  

I could not help but think of all of the backpackers that we passed on the trail who had to set up camp early to escape the rain.  

On our way home we heard on the radio that there was talk about closing the bridge to Hanalei so we decided to hunker down for the night and not meet people for happy hour as we originally planned.  (It would not end happy if we couldn't get back home!)  The bridge closes when the water lever rises above 8 feet.  At home we watched the news and there was a special emergency report (with annoying emergency sound effects and all) telling people in our area that flash floods were eminent and to get to higher ground. Were we supposed to leave the house?  

What a crazy day.  The weather changed so quickly.  I guess we should not be so surprised considering Kauai is home to one of the rainiest places on the planet (Mount Waialeale averages 450 inches of rain each year).