We continued our touristy adventures in Oahu by spending our next day on the North Shore. The North Shore is considered to be the more “undeveloped” side of the island so there were lots of natural landmarks and beaches to visit. I had a full day scheduled of sightseeing but in order to appease my anti-car riding vacation buddies I knew I would have to squeeze in a crowd pleaser at the start of the day.
I opted for the Waimea Falls Park as our first stop because I knew it would win my Mom and Dad over, (if you remember from the Road to Hana they have quite the affinity for waterfalls of any and all kids). The waterfall at this particular park was distinctly special because visitors are actually allowed to swim underneath the falls.
The falls are located within the Waimea Falls Park, which unfortunately means that you have to pay an entrance fee ($15/person). But your entrance fee does give you access to a few other special perks. The park itself is an almost 2,000 acre botanical garden with a litany of native tropical plants.
In order to access the falls, you have to walk through about a mile of gardens (on a paved path). Luckily, the scenery makes the walk even more enjoyable.
All of the beautiful plants you see in this picture are maintained by the non-profit Hi’ipaka, which was created for the sole intended purpose of caring for this scared land. The Waimea Valley holds significant cultural importance to the Hawaiians so it was important to them that this land always remain open to the public. Along with exhibiting native plants, the park is also home to some of Hawaii’s native animals. The ‘o’opu fish swim in the nearby stream with the native mollusks. Native insect life is also alive and well (the bug bites on my legs could attest to that).
We ended up veering off of the path and walking along the stream, which I highly recommended. The rolling waters make the land around the falls very nutrient rich. Since the land in this valley is so fertile, it was among the first places on the island to be inhabited, somewhere around the 12th century. This area was home to a legendary spiritual leader Pa’ao, whose spiritual impact was so great in this area that his descendants ruled until the 1800s.
After walking for about thirty minutes, we finally made it to the falls. For those of you unable to hike, the park offers, for a small fee, a ride from the entrance up to the falls.
As you can see above, lots of people take advantage of the opportunity to swim under the falls. To keep everything safe, the park has two lifeguards on duty watching the swimmers at all times. The falls may not look massive from these pictures but they fall down 40 feet.
The water was freezing–way too cold for me. But not to cold for this guy. He hopped right in, while I got busy taking thousands of pictures. If you’ve ever had the desire to swim underneath a waterfall, Waimea Falls would be the perfect place to do it. Mr. A certainly thought it was a cool once-in-a-lifetime adventure. With our waterfall quota filled, we walked back to the car and headed on to the rest of our Northern Shore sights.
Have you ever swam underneath a waterfall?
