THE GARDEN ISLAND

Kaua'i is the westernmost of the Hawaiian Islands that can be visited by the public. It is about 558 square miles in size, about 33 miles from east to west and 25 miles from north to south. Mt Wai'ale'ale (5,148 feet) is considered the wettest place on earth, averaging 468 inches of rain annually. The centre, the north and east coasts are wet while the south and west coasts tend to be drier. The central plateau is famous for the Alaka'i Swamp which was the last haunt of a number of endangered Hawaiian birds that may have tripped over into extinction in the last 20 years.

Japanese White-eye Zosterops japonicus, in Ohia Metrosideros polymorpha. Another introduced bird now common to all the islands.

Bigger Than It Looks

As an Australian used to large distances between location, it seems to me that Kaua'i is a ridiculously small island with an impossible diversity of birds. How can it be? I'll quote Jim Denny in his excellent book "The Birds of Kaua'i". "Logic suggests that no one can get lost on an island, that if you were just to keep walking in a straight line, you would eventually meet the seashore. This logic does not apply to Kaua'i's interior. The Alaka'i is so thick with vegetation and so deeply cut by the many valleys that drain it that it is impossible to walk in the same direction for any great distance. It is a dangerous place to go."

Indeed, there were posters along trails and in shop windows in the Koke'e State Park of a bushwalker that had vanished in the previous year. Kaua'i is bigger then it looks, many more hectares than can be estimated from a 2 dimensional map.

Denny, J. (1999) The Birds of Kaua'i, University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu.

The Alaka'i Swamp. Dissected valley after dissected valley.

Alaka'i Swamp Trail.

One of the many creeks in the Alaka'i Swamp.

The Alaka'i is often cloaked in mist.