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Kaua’i |
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Saturday, August 30, 2008 Our Helicopter Tour |
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We all woke up excited and ready to go – this was the day we were doing our re-scheduled helicopter tour of the island. With plenty of time to spare, we were at the offices of Jack Harter Helicopter, just outside of the Lihue Airport. We met up with our flight mates, Victoria and John from Arizona, and soon found ourselves eagerly anticipating our flight, especially as we sat across the tarmac from our helicopter, with its engines churning! |
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The waterfall from Jurassic Park where the helicopter lands at the beginning of the movie |
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THIS was why we flew—you could never see this vista in the car! |
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The Waimea Canyon—the Grand Canyon of the Pacific |
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With our radio headsets on, it was actually a quiet ride as we took off with a little bit of hovering as our pilot turned out helicopter into the direction of our tour. You can tell that Kaua’i has these helicopter flights well executed. They leave about every five minutes and all roughly follow the same route, going counter-clockwise around the island. The main difference (aside from the quality of the helicopter) is definitely in the pilot (i.e. tour guide) and the presentation of the tour. Ours was brilliant. He’d been flying these tours for about fifteen years and had an excellent repertoire of jokes up his sleeve. The best part was that there was a soundtrack playing through the headset system. Some of it was a little cheesy, like when you fly over the waterfall from the movie Jurassic Park (the scene where the helicopter first arrives on the island) and the sound system played the theme song from the movie. One of the neatest scenes was when we were climbing in altitude to get over a ridge into the Waimea Canyon and the music was building in crescendo – the music really accentuated the visual impact of this incredible view (the canyon is a deep as 3000 feet in some places). |
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We continued around the island to skirt the edges of the Nā Pali coastline, giving us an eagle-eye view of the cliffs we had gone boating past just days before. It was quite disconcerting, though, when our pilot took us up one of the canyons, hovering (what seemed like) feet from the canyon walls! Even though it was really neat, Kathie and Victoria were quite happy to get back on terra firma as they were both starting to get a wee bit air sick. |
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The Nā Pali Coastline—just a wee bit different from what we saw from the catamaran a couple of days ago! |
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îOne of the amazing canyons on the northern coast The Wailua Falls from above (think back to Fantasy Island!) →
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Since it was the last full day of the trip, we decided to make one last run up to the north side of the island, this time to Tunnel Beach, a beach written up in a number of travel magazines as being one of the most beautiful beaches in the world. They weren’t far off! The cove stretched around for about a mile, with beautiful beaches, palm trees, beautiful azure waters, and lots of sealife to explore! Victoria and I did some snorkeling while Kathie relaxed on the beach with her book. The only downside was that there was no restroom facilities on the beach and that it was already mid-afternoon when we got to the beach, so we weren’t able to stay too long. Pity, because we were having a wonderful time! |
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Since it was our last evening on Kaua’i, we had gotten reservations for dinner at the Beach House. This restaurant had the full package and is definitely one to dine in when visiting Kaua’i! The food was fantastic, they had a great wine list, and the setting was second to none! Definitely a great way to end our trip!
Tomorrow: Time To Bid Aloha |
