Day 9: The Cave and Hike

In the morning, the Ag group and Hydro group took a tour of the Makauwahi Cave. Burney showed us around the north cave where the entrance is, then around the sinkhole, and finally around the south cave. Burney said they have found bones of dogs, chickens, human bones, and a coffin in different areas of the cave. It was a very interesting tour. I really wanted to go and explore the cave some more and go through some of the passage ways but I couldn’t. Then, after we had lunch, the we met up with the vegetation group and went on a hike to the Heiau. that hike was fun and dirty. I had decided to take off my boots and put on sandals at lunch thinking, “we haven’t had too much hiking or rigorous activity.” That was a mistake. The hike was super dusty and rocky. at one point during the hike, Burney showed us some really cool foot prints from a huge bird that use to roam Kauai a long time ago. It was pretty cool.

When we got to the Heiau, the hydrology group decided to keep going and we hiked to Shipwreck Beach. We learned that as we were walking, the rocks were getting younger and younger from the Makauwahi Cave to Shipwreck Beach. Overall it was a successful day, and Dr. Becker said we are probably going to do the hike again tomorrow and take samples of the rocks.