Day 9: Kauai’s Past

David Burney began our day with a tour of the Makauwahi Cave.  He lead us through a small opening at the north end of the cave that spread out to a large sinkhole only a few meters off the beach.  The other end of the sinkhole opened into a large cave with many different passages and rooms.  Although we weren’t allowed to walk through the smaller rooms, I could feel the eerie and spiritual presence as I stood humbly in this cave.

In the afternoon, everyone hiked up the ridge past the sinkhole.  We passed an awesome vantage point on the cliff that overlooked these huge extinct duck footprints on a boulder in the ocean.  Turns out these giant ducks were the original animals that grazed the land in prehistoric times; and the turtles from yesterday are their designated replacements in modern times.  The final stop on the hike ended at an ancient Hawaiian temple called a heiau.  My team took advantage of this amazing archaeological masterpiece.  Sam and I took the perimeter of the rocky area so that we can later identify it on maps, separating it from natural rock formations.  Most of the rocks at the temple had lichen on them, whereas the surrounding rocks did not.  Lichen on rocks is usually results from long-term, stationary rocks, which is indicative that these temples may have existed in prehistoric times.  Although we didn’t stay at the heiau long, our team is heading back tomorrow to take more measurements.

We had a lecture by Chuck Blay at the NTBG research center later in the night.  He lectured on the evolutionary history of the Hawaiian islands.  He spoke about many different geologic features of Kauai, such as Waimea Canyon, Lihue Basin, and Mount Waialeale.  I really hope we get the chance to visit these stunning places during our stay in Kauai.