The next day we went down to the semi private beach below where we were staying. I say semi private because in Hawaii all beaches are public, even if it is on property you own. But there was no easy way to get to this beach, even for us. There was a hidden path behind the big house that we took down there. It was a very pretty beach and peaceful. There was another beach next to it that surfers were using. A rock wall separated the two beaches.
I decided to be creative with my photography and copy a postcard I had seen while we were there
After our visit to the beach was my favorite thing we did. The helicopter tour! We used a company called Jack Harter Helicopters. It was a great experience. The pilot was very knowledgeable and friendly. Wendy was terrified as she thought she was going to fall out the whole time (there were seat belts). We booked the helicopter tour that has the doors off. I loved it. The way they had us seated, I was in the back seat, and Wendy was up front. The great thing about taking this tour is that you can’t get to everywhere by car or by foot on the island. The helicopter allowed us to go see places we could not have gotten to, and it was a fun way to travel too.
The pilot showed us a lot of water falls. Apparently there are a lot of places on this island that were used in movies, especially Jurrasic Park. This water fall was in that movie.
We also flew to Waimea Canyon which is similar to the Grand Canyon in AZ. Really cool.
He then flew us over the Na Pali Coast. Wow, it was really beautiful. There’s some cool history associated with it as well. According to legend, when a tribal chief died, his servant would take his body to this area. There are caves all along the cliffs. The servant would then take the body into one of the caves where he would kill himself to keep the final resting place of his chief a secret. They also used areas around this coast for the young men to prove their manhood by dropping them off here and have them make their way back. It is a pretty remote and rugged area.
He then flew us to the wettest spot on Earth, Mount Wai?ale?ale. It gets over 400 inches of rain a year.
We finished by making a complete circle around the island. It was a great way to see this part of Hawaii.
That night, we ate at a restaurant called Dukes. A friend had recommended it, and it was pretty good. You have to get a reservation, and it wasn’t our first attempt to try to eat at Dukes. For desert we had Hula pie, which was much hyped by guidebooks and the Internet. It was pretty good.