Heaven takes me up the river

The ancient Menehune fishpond off the Huleia River. Photo by David Lansing.

So yesterday I got up relatively early and drove to the Nawiliwili Small Boat Harbor in Lihue to go kayaking up the Huleia River. Alicia had given me very explicit directions on how to get there but I still got lost. How can anyone get lost on such a small island? It’s a mystery.

Anyway, I finally found the harbor and even came across several little kayak concessions along the road but not the one I was looking for. So after driving around and around the harbor, and then back up the road towards Niumalu, I finally stopped at a spot along the river where I saw a tiny little Hawaiian woman, wearing board shorts and a bikini top, who was pulling some kayaks out of the water. I told her I was lost and looking for Hidden Valley Falls Kayak Adventure.

“You’re not lost,” she said, smiling. “You’re found.” Then she climbed up the bank of the river to shake my hand and introduce herself. “I’m Heaven,” she said. “I’m going to take you upriver.”

Well damnation! What do you think about that? I was being led upriver by Heaven! As it turns out, that wasn’t her real name, of course. That would be Heavenly Mist. “But my friends call me Heaven.”

I knew right away I was in good hands. Heaven got me outfitted and sprayed some bug juice on my arms and legs (“There will be mosquitos”) and then I climbed in to the front of our faded red tandem kayak and she pushed us off from shore, hopping into the back.

Now anytime you’re lucky enough to get Heaven sitting in the back of a kayak with you, there are bound to be some questions and I had plenty. I asked Heaven where we were headed and she said, “It all depends.”

Okay. I get it. I needed to be on my best behavior. Heaven, who was much smaller than I would have imagined, told me that she was so small, some people said she was a Menehune. If you’re not familiar with Menehune, they’re sometimes described as Hawaiian leprechauns. They’re tiny and mischievous and are said to have unusual powers. For instance, they say that the Menehune can build walls and villages overnight, but they only do it under a full moon and when no one can see them.

I asked Heaven if they did indeed build things like the stone walls of Hawaiian fishponds overnight and she said, “Do you doubt it?” Then she paddled us through a grove of mangroves stretching along the banks of the river, winding her way through a mysterious channel, and then stuck the paddle in the water to stop us. Before me was an ancient stonewall, hundreds of feet long.

The Menehune built this one night several hundred years ago, Heaven told me. Only they were disturbed in the middle of the night as they were building it by a Tahitian prince and princess who stood on a bluff overlooking the river, watching them. “So they were turned in to stone. And they stand there today,” she said, pointing at a rock outcropping that looked mysteriously like a man and a woman standing on an overlook. “So what do you think?” she said. “Do you believe the story?”

Absolutely, I told her. Who would be crazy enough to think otherwise? And with that, Heaven continued to take me up the river.