Kauai day 5

We started the morning by putting down the top of the jeep, driving for a few minutes and pulling over as a surprise rainstorm threatened, and putting up the top as the buckets began to fall. By the time the top was up, the rain was almost done.

Then we met our group from Ali'i Kayaks and began to paddle up the Wailua river.We took a fork of the river as far as we could paddle and then we hiked though the jungle, which was mostly mud (mud not pictured here.) It was perilous folks. The majority of the group were people in their late 20's and early 30's pretty fit and we were barely able to keep upright.
We saw some grannies beginning the hike and there is no way they made it. Water socks were mandatory not for water crossings but mud trudging. This is what they mean when they say "short hike" in Hawaii. Oh, yeah, and we had to dodge killer mangoes as they fell on our heads. Let me tell you the smell of rotting, fermenting mangoes is enough to make you swear off all fruit, forever.
Still, it was worth it as we reached Secret Falls and saw this idyllic Hawaiian scene.
I swam into the cold (but not as cold as any body of water in Montana) water and swam out to the falls. I am a pretty strong swimmer but I had to swim with all my might the force of the water was so strong. And then I tried to stand underneath, but that is a LOT of water tumbling on my head, it hurt. So hats off to all the actors and actresses who have love scenes under waterfalls, it isn't as easy as it looks.
Our guide "Brandon" learned that we had a jeep and that Moose wanted to go employ the 4-wheel drive. He told us about this fantastical place in the mountains where the rocks are white and there is a pool of water that is so very blue, called, "The Blue Place." I think this is how he has fun with the tourists because we never found "The Blue Place." We did find a lot of mud, and huge holes in the road that were the size of a dodge ram. My neck was very sore and we found out what the bar on the passenger side was for -HOLDING ON!
We did find a neat little swimming hole that we discoverd by following this irrigation channel, doesn't it just look so cool...This is an aquaduct type thing where 4 channels converged and there were falls and a pool that I swam in that was not safe for swimming. Once again, very strong current - but I had to get to the man made water falls.
The beginning or end of this journey was at an arboretum that happens to contain cool trees that have bark that reminded me of brown, orange and green clay rolled together and this valley famous for being in the movie Jurassic Park.