We have been on Kauai now a little over 2 months, being a small island you would think you’d run out of things to do and see but Kauai has proven to be quite the island for adventure. With its breathtaking beaches and the never ending list of hiking trails we have yet to run out of places to explore, which leads us to our most recent visits of two spectacular waterfalls!
Both growing up in the mountains of North Carolina we were spoiled with beautiful mountains and amazing waterfalls. Waterfalls have always been a love of both of ours so of course when we travel we are drawn to seek them out wherever we go! Kauai definitely has its fair share of waterfalls and you can bet that we will try to mark off as many as we can before our time on the island ends.
The last couple weeks we had been scoping out the best kayak rental companies on the island so we can explore Wailua river and hike to “Secret Falls”, seems as everywhere we turned we were hearing about how stunning these falls were so we had to see what everyone was raging about, but the more we priced around the thought of spending $80-$100 on a kayak rental/tour to these falls the more we kept putting it off asking ourselves would it be worth that? So being the thrifters that we are, we started a plan B! We starting looking at thrift stores, craigslist and Facebook yard sale sites to find a couple kayaks that we could buy, use and resell, hoping to at least break even after it was all said and done. Well a deal finally slapped us in the face as we got a call about a 2 person kayak for $50! Of course we nabbed it up, the only thing we had to get now were a couple paddles which set us back another $5o, but having $100 into a 2 person kayak that we could use for the next few months and easily break even on after we were done was a no brainer win-win!
So now that we had our kayak, we set off to finally explore Uluwehi falls (Secret Falls). We put in near Wailua Beach and starting paddling up river, it was the absolute perfect day to be outside and we thoroughly enjoyed our trek up the quiet river. There comes a point in the river where you need to make a right turn, this will take you further upstream it becomes more narrow as you keep going, leading to a small beach area where you pull your boat up onto firm ground, you will easily spot the trail as its pretty well traveled with plenty of trail signs. The hiking portion is only about 20 min hike and can be slippery at times. Be prepared to get muddy! You will cross through a few streams, hike along the banks into the beautiful tropical forests and eventually be greeted by the amazing falls. It truly was a sight to see! Overall between the kayaking and the hiking (with about an hour at the falls) we spent a total of 4-5 hours on the adventure.
Another quick waterfall hike we did the following day were to the Ho’opi’i Falls. They are easily accessible just requires a short 20 min hike or so to the first falls. When doing research before heading out, many people found it tricky to find but luckily we had fantastic directions that we found on a trip advisor review and were able to find it no problem. I even talked my self into jumping off the rocks into this one (only about 15 ft or so) If you have desire to hike to the second falls (which we did) follow the lower trail that goes along the river pretty cool falls but In our opinion the first falls was our favorite out of the two.
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