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 Today I’m on the island of Kauai. Kauai is one of the major islands of the Hawaiian island chain and it’s age of six million years makes it the oldest of the inhabited islands. Oahu - the most populous island – was created about three million years ago and Hawaii (or Big Island), which is the largest Hawaiian island, is just one million years old.

The Hawaiian islands are located in the center of the tectonic plate covered by the Pacific Ocean – the largest body of water on earth. A static hotspot created all islands through volcanic activity. Since the Pacific plate is drifting north-eastwards, the westernmost islands are the oldest while the easternmost islands are the youngest. Big Island (or Hawaii) is the only major island with active volcanoes and is closest to the hotspot whereas the other islands – e.g. Kauai – have drifted away from the hotspot. Kauai is farther than 200 miles away form the hotspot where it was once created. Henceforth, all volcanic activity stopped on these islands.

Exposed to erosion for millions of years, Kauai has gorgeous beaches and spectacular canyons. The main volcanic crater of Kauai is officially the wettest spot on earth. Its peak is covered by clouds virtually all the time and the massive amount of rain – at least one inch a day on average – is the reason why there are seven rivers flowing from the crater towards the Pacific ocean.

In all likelihood, Kauai’s landscape is familiar to you since countless movies and TV series – like Tropic Thunder, Blue Hawaii, Jurassic Park and Lost – were filmed on the island. Moreover, Kauai looks like most people imagine Hawaii to look like. Its lush vegetation is a result of the extremely potent red soil that is typical for the island and the frequent rain showers.

Macadamia, coffee, passion fruit, pineapple, sugar cane, mango, papaia, coconut and apple banana are all fruits that can be found and harvested everywhere. Especially Kauai’s pineapples are famous since they’re the sweetest in the world and can only be grown on the island. Their flesh is rather white than yellow and very sweet due to the lack of acid.

Kauai really is a tropical paradise. Getting off the plane at Lihue is already relaxing. Right away you feel that you’re in the tropics since most of the airport building just serves as a protection from tropical rain and is open towards the sides. There’s no need to keep it away from the cold because you’re on Kauai. Most of the building is not air-conditioned.

After arriving, I joined a nine-hour tour of the island which took me to the most important sightseeing spots and scenic places.

A few of the highlights:

- Spouting Horn: Water pushing water through a lava tube

- Jurassic Park Valley: the valley in which many scenes for the Jurassic Park movies were filmed

- Waimea Canyon: the Grand Canyon of the Pacific

- Fern Grotto: the most romantic spot in Hawaii

This entry was posted on Friday, September 4th, 2009 at 4:35 AM and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.