Kauai is the oldest of Hawaii’s major islands, formed by volcanic activity roughly 5 million years ago, its age giving erosion far longer to work than on Hawaii’s younger islands, carving the dramatic Na Pali Coast’s sheer sea cliffs and the deep, colourful canyon of Waimea, which Mark Twain reportedly nicknamed the “Grand Canyon of the Pacific” after visiting in the 19th century. That extended erosion has also made Kauai the greenest and most lushly vegetated of the main Hawaiian islands, earning it the nickname “The Garden Island.”
Mount Waialeale, near the island’s centre, is among the wettest spots on Earth, receiving an average of well over 9 metres of rainfall annually, a climate extreme that feeds the island’s numerous waterfalls and rivers while leaving much of its interior essentially inaccessible by road, a genuine, still largely unmapped wilderness at the heart of a well-visited tourist island.
An Island Hollywood Kept Returning To
Kauai’s dramatic, largely undeveloped landscape has made it one of Hollywood’s favourite filming locations, standing in for prehistoric jungles, tropical islands, and fictional worlds in productions including Jurassic Park, South Pacific, and numerous other major films, its Na Pali Coast so visually striking that it required minimal alteration to appear otherworldly on screen. Unlike Oahu or Maui, Kauai has deliberately limited large-scale resort development, county height restrictions on buildings, no structure taller than a coconut tree, have helped preserve the island’s relatively low-key, less commercially built-up character.
The Na Pali Coast itself remains accessible only by boat, helicopter, or a demanding multi-day hiking trail, no road has ever successfully been built along its cliffs, a genuine, ongoing limit on human access that has helped keep the coastline largely as wild as when Mark Twain first saw it.
Painting Cliffs That Roads Never Reached
The Na Pali Coast’s sheer green cliffs dropping into the Pacific give a watercolourist extraordinary vertical drama and tropical colour to work with. We’ve captured that untouched coastline in our own Kauai Watercolor Print, painted first by hand and printed to order on archival paper, a small piece of Hawaii for a wall at home.
Too wet, too steep, and too remote for roads to ever fully reach, Kauai remains one of the few Hawaiian islands where the wilderness genuinely still has the upper hand.