50 Fun Facts About Kauai

Which feral animals overran Kauai after a 1992 hurricane is thought to have blown their pens apart?

Chickens roam wild all over Kauai, and some of the escapees are thought to have been gamecocks bred for fighting.

Which empire's flag flew over a fort built on Kauai in 1817, in a scheme led by a German doctor?

Russia gained a brief foothold through Georg Anton Schäffer, an agent of the Russian-American Company, until Kauai's ruler expelled his men on the orders of Kamehameha I.

Which ten-mile Kauai canyon, up to 3,000 feet deep, is called the Grand Canyon of the Pacific?

Waimea is Hawaiian for reddish water, a nod to the red soil that washes off the canyon's weathered basalt walls.

Which Spielberg film used Kauai's Manawaiopuna Falls, reachable only by helicopter, as a backdrop?

Jurassic Park made the cascade so famous that it is now nicknamed Jurassic Falls. A hurricane hit Kauai on the last scheduled day of the shoot.

Which privately owned island off Kauai, bought for $10,000 in 1864, is known as the Forbidden Isle?

Niihau has stayed with the descendants of Elizabeth Sinclair, the Scottish planter who bought it, and remains off-limits to outsiders unless they are invited.

Mount Waialeale, a 5,148-foot peak near the centre of Kauai, is promoted as one of Earth's what?

It is one of the wettest spots on Earth, averaging more than 373 inches of rain a year since 1912. The name Waialeale means rippling or overflowing water.

Which British captain made Europe's first recorded contact with Hawaii, off Kauai in January 1778?

James Cook came upon Kauai by accident while crossing the Pacific on his third voyage, and stayed in the area only about two weeks before sailing on.

Which 2002 Disney film is set on Kauai, with Hanapepe as the model for its heroine's hometown?

Lilo & Stitch was first pitched with its alien crash-landing in rural Kansas, before the story moved to Kauai.

Which beings of Hawaiian legend are credited with building Kauai's 900-foot Alekoko Fishpond wall?

Menehune are said to be dwarf-like master builders who lived in Hawaii before the Hawaiians arrived, hiding in deep forests and valleys.

Which nickname does Kauai, the fourth-largest of the main Hawaiian Islands, use for itself?

The Garden Isle sits beside other Hawaiian island nicknames: Maui is the Valley Isle, named for the isthmus between its two volcanic masses.

Which 1958 Rodgers and Hammerstein film musical was shot around Hanalei Bay on Kauai's north shore?

South Pacific used Hanalei Bay for its beach scenes, while matte paintings supplied the distant views of the mythical isle Bali Hai.

Which 1992 storm, the most powerful on record to strike Hawaii, made landfall on southern Kauai?

Hurricane Iniki came ashore with 140 mph winds just 18 days after Hurricane Andrew devastated Florida. Its name is Hawaiian for a strong and piercing wind.

Which Kauai surfer returned to competition after a tiger shark bit off her left arm in 2003?

Bethany Hamilton was 13 when she was attacked off Tunnels Beach, and her memoir Soul Surfer became a 2011 feature film.

What does Na Pali, the name of Kauai's rugged 16-mile northwest coast, mean in Hawaiian?

The cliffs, or more exactly many cliffs, is the meaning, and the name fits: they rise as much as 4,000 feet above the Pacific.

Which Hawaiian island lies roughly 70 miles southeast of Kauai, across the Kaieiewaho Channel?

Oahu sits beyond the Kaieiewaho Channel, also called the Kauai Channel, where the seabed drops more than 11,000 feet.

Which 1961 Elvis Presley film ends with a wedding on the lagoon of Kauai's Coco Palms Resort?

Blue Hawaii made the hotel famous, and it hosted Hawaiian-style weddings for decades until a 1992 hurricane destroyed it.

Which 1981 adventure film shot the exterior scenes of its Peru-set opening on location on Kauai?

Raiders of the Lost Ark begins with the Paramount logo dissolving into a real peak, Kalalea Mountain on Kauai.

Which blowhole in the Koloa district of Kauai's south shore can shoot spray as high as 50 feet?

Spouting Horn was known in Hawaiian simply as puhi, meaning blowhole, and each spout through the lava rock comes with a hissing sound.

Which crop, first planted there by ancient Hawaiians, fills the flooded fields of Kauai's Hanalei Valley today?

Taro farms along the Hanalei River grow most of Hawaii's crop, though a century ago nearly all of this plain was planted with rice instead.

Which crop made Koloa on Kauai the site of Hawaii's first commercially successful plantation?

Sugarcane had long been raised by Hawaiians on small plots, but the 1835 Koloa venture began an industry that dominated the islands' economy for a century.

Which ruler kept Kauai unconquered, then agreed in 1810 to become a vassal of Kamehameha I?

Kaumualii settled the matter by diplomacy, promising that Kauai would pass to Kamehameha's heir on his death, so the island was never taken in battle.

What made Kamehameha I cancel his second invasion of Kauai, after his first attempt failed in 1796?

An epidemic broke out among the forces Kamehameha had gathered, and Kauai later joined his kingdom by negotiation rather than conquest.

What name did the British expedition that reached Kauai in 1778 give the Hawaiian archipelago?

Sandwich Islands honoured the fourth Earl of Sandwich, who was First Lord of the Admiralty at the time.

Which trade good did Kauai's people prize so highly in 1778 that scraps of it bought plentiful food?

Iron was so sought after that British sailors could exchange even a single nail for generous supplies of fresh provisions.

Which Kauai-born royal became Hawaii's delegate to Congress and is honoured with a state holiday?

Prince Kuhio, born at Koloa in 1871, was the only member of Congress born into royalty, and in 1919 he introduced the first Hawaii statehood bill.

Princeville on Kauai honours an 1860 visit by the son of Kamehameha IV and which royal consort?

Queen Emma was the mother of Prince Albert Kamehameha, and the planter who named Princeville for the boy also tried the name Emmaville nearby, which never stuck.

Which widow of Kamehameha I forced Kauai's last independent king to marry her, sealing the union?

Kaahumanu, by then the kingdom's effective political force, made the match to bind Kauai to the rest of the chain, and the couple had no children.

Which religion's Iraivan Temple on Kauai was built from granite blocks hand-carved in India?

Hinduism gained the Western Hemisphere's first all-stone, white granite temple here, raised by traditional methods without modern tools or electricity.

Which art form is honoured at the shrine to the goddess Laka in Kauai's Haena State Park?

Hula is linked to several archaeological sites in the park, which is often called the end of the road because the north shore highway stops there.

Which seasoning, traditionally mixed with red volcanic clay, is produced at Hanapepe on Kauai?

Sea salt coloured with alaea clay turns brick red, and Hawaiians traditionally used it to cleanse and bless tools, canoes, homes and temples.

Hikers who climb Kauai's Nounou Mountain reach the forehead of which nicknamed landmark above Kapaa?

Sleeping Giant owes its name to a reclining human profile and to a legend of a giant who lay down after great labour or overeating and has yet to wake.

Which Kauai town is the county seat and the site of the island's only commercial airport?

Lihue is the seat of Kauai County yet only the island's second-largest town, behind Kapaa a few miles up the coast.

Which actor played a lawyer weighing the sale of his family's Kauai land in The Descendants?

George Clooney won a Golden Globe for the role, in a 2011 film shot mostly in Honolulu and around Hanalei Bay.

Which name is shared by a lighthouse community on Kauai and an active volcano on Hawaii island?

Kilauea on Kauai is known for a lighthouse dedicated in 1913, whose beam let two Army pilots fix their position in 1927 on the first flight from California to Hawaii.

Which predator, widespread on Maui, Molokai and the Big Island, has no known population on Kauai?

Mongoose were brought to Hawaii in 1883 by planters to control rats in their fields, and state law now refuses permits to keep them in Kauai County.

Which Kauai waterway, the route to the Fern Grotto, is called Hawaii's only navigable one?

Wailua River takes boats larger than kayaks, and its Fern Grotto, a fern-covered lava cave on the south fork, can be rented for weddings.

Which TV drama of 1977 to 1984 used Kauai's Na Pali Coast and a waterfall in its opening scenes?

Fantasy Island was filmed mainly in Burbank, California, so the Kauai shots of coast and falls did the work of selling its tropical setting.

The Kauai cave wolf spider, found only in lava caves near Koloa, completely lacks what?

Eyes are missing in this species alone among wolf spiders; locals call it the blind spider, though its surface-dwelling relatives have large ones.

Kauai is the eroded remnant of which type of volcanic mountain, built about five million years ago?

A shield volcano formed Kauai as the Pacific Plate passed over the Hawaii hotspot, and erosion has since exposed a summit caldera up to 12 miles across.

Which 11-mile footpath on Kauai's Na Pali Coast runs from Kee Beach to a valley of the same name?

Kalalau Trail has been named one of America's most beautiful and most dangerous hikes, and most walkers need at least two days for the round trip.

Which country did Kauai stand in for during filming of the 1983 miniseries The Thorn Birds?

Australia was the setting, and every scene set in Queensland was filmed on Kauai, several of them in the town of Hanapepe.

Kauai's Opaekaa Falls is named in Hawaiian for which creatures, once seen tumbling down the cascade?

Shrimp is opae in Hawaiian and kaa means rolling, a name from the days when a native freshwater species was plentiful in the stream.

Which animals did Kauai's Makauwahi Cave Reserve keep in an enclosure to graze down invasive weeds?

Tortoises of the African sulcata kind stood in for the huge flightless ducks and geese that once grazed here, whose fossils the cave preserves.

Which trees form the Tunnel of Trees over Maluhia Road, the route to Koloa and Poipu on Kauai?

Eucalyptus of the swamp mahogany kind lines the road, and one story credits pineapple baron Walter McBryde with planting 500 trees left over from his estate in 1911.

Which stretch of Kauai's western shore is home to the U.S. Navy's Pacific Missile Range Facility?

Barking Sands is named for the noise its dunes are said to make when the grains shift, and aviator Charles Kingsford Smith took off from here for Fiji in 1928.

Each Hawaiian island has a Lei Day lei and colour; which colour goes with Kauai's mokihana?

Purple is Kauai's colour, while Maui takes pink with its damask rose and the Big Island takes red with the ohia lehua blossom.

Which summit, whose Hawaiian name means the multitudinous water, is Kauai's highest point?

Kawaikini reaches 5,243 feet, less than 100 feet above its better-known neighbour Waialeale, and both are remnants of the eroded volcano that built the island.

Which consonant, absent from standard Hawaiian, once began Kauai's name in the island's old dialect?

T was kept from older Polynesian speech where standard Hawaiian shifted to K, so islanders once said Tauai and Tapaa for Kauai and Kapaa.

Which vessel, the first oceangoing yacht built in America, was wrecked in Kauai's Hanalei Bay?

Cleopatra's Barge had been sold to Hawaii's King Liholiho for more than a million pounds of sandalwood, and sailed as his Pride of Hawaii until the 1824 wreck.

Which service does shortwave station WWVH broadcast from Kauai for a U.S. government institute?

Time signals from WWVH give standard time and frequency information to the public, and can even be heard by dialling a Kauai telephone number.