Wainiha Beach Park, past mile marker 6, is often a great place to beachcomb, but the swimming is not good. Check out our review here.
One of the best snorkel and shore SCUBA spots on the island, Tunnels Beach, is past mile marker 8. (See here.) This is the same spot that the world renowned surfer, Bethany Hamilton, lost her arm to a tiger shark in 2003. Her story got the Hollywood treatment in the film Soul Surfer. Don't let this deter you from seeing this amazing beach. See Hazards for reassurance.
Before you get to mile marker 9, the road dips at Manoa Stream. The stream flows over the road and is always creating potholes. It often creates a hole big and deep enough to pop your tire, so look for it as you cross.
You are now at Ha'ena Beach Park. Camping is allowed with a county permit, and the beach is lovely year round (but the swimming isn't always lovely; see here).
Across the street from Ha'ena Beach Park is the Manini-holo Dry Cave. Manini-holo was said to be the chief fisherman for the Menehune. He and other Menehune dug the cave looking for supernatural beasts called akua who had been stealing their fish, but they didn't find da buggah.
Below mile marker 9 is a pile of rocks, all that remains of a heiau that was destroyed when they built the road. Called Hale Pohaku, it was where they raised small white dogs that served two purposes. One was food for the chiefs. The other was for chiefesses who gave birth. Often times children born to important chiefesses were removed and raised by others. So the small dogs would have their teeth pulled so they could nurse from the chiefesses to relieve the pressure in their breasts from the milk. If you look around, you'll find that one of the rocks has a petroglyph of a dog still on it.
Past mile marker 9 you will come to Limahuli Stream. Many people (including us) use this stream to rinse off the saltwater after their day at Ke'e Beach, which is still ahead, or use it to rinse SCUBA gear after a dive at Tunnels.
Above Limahuli Stream is the Limahuli Garden (808-826-1053). It is part of the National Tropical Botanical Garden. They have self-guided tours for $25 Tuesdays through Saturdays. The variety of endangered plants is refreshing. A real treat is the ancient terrace system, crafted by some of the earliest Hawaiians, estimated to be 700 years old and in fantastic condition. ?Reservations are required.
Just past the Limahuli Stream you come to a parking lot. The last .3 miles of highway is closed to vehicles. In order to park here you need to reserve it pretty far in advance, usually about a month. The reason is that the end of the road at Ke'e Beach, called Ha'ena State Park and Na Pali Coast State Park (ahead) was being loved to death by more visitors than the park could handle. So the state decided to start limiting the number of visitors. In order to visit Ke'e now you need to get permits online at gohaena.com. It's $5 per person. If parking permits are available, it costs $10 per timeslot, available 6:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m., 12:30 p.m.-5:30 p.m., and 4:30 p.m.-sunset. If parking permits are not available, you can catch the shuttle (gohaena.com) from Hanalei at the Waipa Park & Ride (between mile markers 3 and 4). But it's a pricey $40 per person ($25 for ages 4-15) to use the shuttle to visit the park. If you're doing any overnight camping along the Kalalau Trail (see Adventures) and have the appropriate permits, you are not subject to the reservation system or the visitor limit (they already counted you). However, you will need to pay for parking if you're leaving a car in the lot. Hawai'i residents are not subject to these reservation requirements.
Walk the shoreline trail past Ke'e Beach for a great view of Na Pali.
From the parking you might see a trail across the street (and it may be closed) that leads to one of the two Wet Caves, called Waikapala'e Cave and Waikanaloa Cave. The upper Waikapala'e Cave contains a clean, freshwater pool. Until some years ago the back portion of the cave (reachable only by swimming in the cold water) hid a phenomenon called the Blue Room (a chamber where the light turned everything blue). But the water level is now too low, and too much light has erased the blue from the blue room. The wet and dry caves are former sea caves, gouged by waves when the sea level was higher than it is today. We were silly enough to SCUBA dive the upper cave and can report that there is not much to see, but it was kind of fun anyway (and spooky when we swam past where you could see the light entering the cave). Hawaiian legend has it that these caves were dug by the fire goddess Pele. She dug them for her lover but left them when they became filled with water. The lower cave, right off the closed part of the highway, can be visited when you return from Ke'e Beach.
From the parking lot a boardwalk meanders .3 miles to Ke'e Beach (A Real Gem) at the end of the road. Ke'e is marked by a fabulous lagoon that offers great swimming and snorkeling when it's calm. The well-known Kalalau Trail begins here. Eleven miles of hills and switchbacks culminate in a glorious beach setting, complete with a waterfall. The first leg of the hike leads to Hanakapi'ai Beach with a side trip to Hanakapi'ai Falls. You sure ain't gonna do this trail on a whim, so for more on the Kalalau Trail, see what we say in Adventures.
Ke'e is where Na Pali Coast begins. You can see its edges from here. Numerous movie scenes have been filmed at this location. If you walk past Ke'e Beach on the shoreline trail beside the rocks (when seas aren't raging), you'll get an enticing look at the rugged Na Pali coastline. Look up toward the mountains, and you'll see Bali Hai (Hawaiian name Makana Peak). Clever photography turned the peak into the mystical island of Bali Hai in the movie South Pacific. As you stare at this peak with its incredibly steep sides, picture the following scene that took place in ancient times.
To honor the visiting Hokulea voyaging canoe, some folks decided to recreate the ceremony of throwing lighted spears into the ocean from Makana Peak, but learned the hard way that the feat could produce unexpected results.
Men would climb the 1,600-foot peak carrying special spears made of hau and papala. The trail was so difficult in spots that they had to cling to the side of the mountain for dear life. When it got dark, they would light the spears and hurl them as hard as they could toward the ocean below. The spears were designed to leave a fire trail behind and were light enough to get caught in the updrafts. The light show was immensely popular.
From the end of Ke'e Beach, a trail cuts through the jungle up to the Ka-ulu-Paoa Heiau, still visible by the pavement of stones outlining its foundations next to a lava cliff. All the land here is state or county, even the rundown house in the jungle (despite an oddly out-of-place "Private Property" sign on land deeded to the county decades ago). But nearby residents-and sometimes bullhorn-equipped lifeguards-not legally authorized by the state to control access, often dissuade people from walking on this public land to the heiau due to its sacred nature. Whether they have the authority or not, if you are dissuaded, you should respect their wishes.
For over 1,000 years this heiau served as the most important and prestigious school for hula in the islands. Would-be students came from around the island chain to learn from the kumu hula, or hula master. Please don't disturb any rocks lying about. Just past the heiau a short trail leads to a small waterfall (which is merely a trickle during dry times). Fifty generations of hot, thirsty students came to this tiny waterfall, sat on these very rocks and talked about their lives, hopes, fears and dreams. It's humbling to share these rocks with their spirits. It's as if you can still hear the echo of their lives in the sound of the gurgling water.
Just east of Ke'e is where the infamous Taylor Camp used to be. This is where Howard Taylor, brother of the late...
