I left the Big Island by plane to Honolulu where I had to connect to a flight to Lihue on Kauai island. I got off the plane and looked for my new gate and I realised I was already at the right gate. In fact I was getting right back on the same plane 30 minutes later into a different seat.

I had looked into hostels on Kauai but every one I found had a consistent set of very negative reviews. So reluctantly I booked a hotel and found myself in the Aloha Beach Resort hotel. It is by far the nicest place I've stayed in. In fact it's the only place I've stayed in that wasn't a hostel or a bare-bones motel.

On my first night there I had dinner in the in-hotel restaurant. The service was terrible, the food was average and not worth the money. So I decided I couldn't go back there again.

The next day I went around the island by car to the state parks on the other side. I went straight by Waimea Canyon, glancing briefly as I passed the viewpoints because I was intent on getting to the further Kokee State Park as early as possible. The only thing to do there is hiking - there's nothing to see right there. I'd decided from my guide book to do the Alakai Swamp Trail. It starts off on the best looking trail I've been on. By that I mean it looked great - it was made of large round bumps and a fantastic colour.

I took a quick side path to a vista shortly after the start. It turned into almost scrambling up short sections with worn-in footholds and tree roots as handholds. The vista itself was not worth even the short hike as it was not better than what I could see from the trail and was partly obscured by trees. On the way back down I had to lower myself down the sections I'd scrambled up and it was slightly slippery and muddy. I told myself to be careful not to get a foot caught in a root and end up twisting an ankle. About a minute later I almost wrenched my knee as my lower foot slipped and my other leg tried to straighten out in a way my knee didn't like. I managed to jump down and run to a careful stop.

At that exact moment another guy appeared on the trail coming towards me so I did The Guy Thing and leaned against a tree as if nothing had happened. He asked if it was a good viewpoint and I told him, honestly, that it wasn't worth going to. Surprisingly he just trusted me and turned back. My knee was okay in the end after I took it easy on it for a while.

After the trail descended the first part it started to be covered by boardwalk. This was a good thing because as soon as it got to the real swamp part it was very wet and muddy. I passed two guys in a group of four who had decided to get into the swamp. They came out up to their waists in mud so the shallow water masks the true depth of what you could fall into. The trail was fairly popular but quiet enough. I was really immersed in the sights, sounds and smells of the rainforest and swamp.

The viewpoint at the end was really great. I could see the coastline and part of the Na Pali coast, which is fantastic. I asked one of two people already there to take my photo before they turned back. After a stop for lunch I turned back too and met the same two people and stopped to talk to them. We walked back to the trailhead together from there and talked. They lived on the island so I asked them if they knew a good place to eat in Kapaa - the town near where I was staying. They recommended the Olympic Cafe... because they both work there. The guy, Greg, was the manager and the girl, Lisa, was the barmaid. On my way back down from the park I stopped to see Waimea Canyon, called 'the Grand Canyon of the Pacific'. It was good but not the best canyon I've seen on this trip.

My second day was full of more excitement. I went back to the same park for another, more gruelling hike that promised more spectacular views. It started off easy enough descending gently through a forest. I saw only two pairs coming the other way for the roughly 2.5 miles until the first vista. The trail had become much steeper downhill and I was glad to be doing a circular trail for a change and not having to come back up the same way. At the end it was crowded, by recent standards, with six people at the viewpoint. The view was as good as promised.

I talked to a nice Kansas City couple called David and Jennifer and we walked on together. The first part we had all done was the Nu'alolo Trail which leads out towards the coast and now we were going to follow the coastline around, about 2000 feet up, on the Nu'alolo Cliff Trail. Greg had told me yesterday that this trail had a very scary section where the cliff is falling down from right to left and you have to walk along a very narrow section of loose sand with a long drop to the left if you slip.

We came to this section and Jennifer was clearly nervous so I tried reassuring her, as I was leading, telling her where the dodgy bits were and when it got better. After a few hundred feet it got safer again and we continued. We came into a grassy area where the grass went over our heads. I couldn't see where we were going but I stuck to the cliff edge, reasoning that this would take us the right way. Then we came to a second dangerous cliff-edge section and we made it safely across again. A few minutes later we came to a sign and I couldn't believe what I saw. We were right back at the intersection where the cliff trail started from the first trail, and we had crossed back over the same rough section but none of us had recognised it.

Jennifer did not want to go back over it a third time so I said goodbye to them and they returned back up the very steep way they had come down. I was much more determined, and possibly foolhardy, so I crossed a third time across the dangerous section slowly and carefully. I waved back to the others and entered the grass section again. This time I took an immediate right and came around a corner to a picnic table. In 10 minutes I had got further along the trail than we had in the preceding half hour.

I went on on my own and saw nobody for the remainder of the cliff trail. It was the most exciting trail I've ever done. Some people might call it 'unmaintained' instead, but it has the same effect. It was rough in places. I was glad there are no bears in Hawaii so I didn't have to be noisy to avoid them. However I did have a mountain goat crash suddenly across the trail right in front of me and down the mountainside which startled me.

At the end of the cliff trail I passed the four people from the first viewpoint coming back from the second viewpoint. I went out to that one which again had spectacular views of the ocean and the deep sheer valleys to either side. I could see queues of helicopters coming into the valley and back out on tours.

The final part, the Awa'awapuhi Trail, leads straight back up in a few miles over a thousand feet to the park road. It was pretty tough going for me. As I pushed through the undergrowth pressing in on the trail listening to the helicopters thudding off in the distance I imagined I was a Viet Cong soldier. I didn't get napalmed, though that would've put me out of my misery. It wasn't particularly hot, only around 70 degrees because of the altitude and coastal proximity, but it was very humid which meant my face felt like it was melting. I got through a lot of water on that hike. Finally I got out to the road and walked back down it to my car. It had taken six hours to go about 11 miles.

By a stroke of luck I saw David and Jennifer in the parking lot talking to a French couple, who were two of the other four people I'd passed twice. We swapped stories about our respective hikes.

On my third and final day I splurged on a helicopter tour of the island. I got a great seat on the front right of the helicopter and I felt lucky not to be in the middle of the back row of four. I can't describe the flight, except to say it was really really good. We saw the waterfall from Jurassic Park which I'd been looking forward to but was slightly disappointed with. The pilot also pointed out an area where they filmed the current movie Tropic Thunder. (When I watched that movie in Seattle two days later I was excited to recognise the background, although it meant I couldn't believe it was really Vietnam, where the movie was set.)

At the end of the ride I bought the DVD recorded on my actual flight. So now if anyone annoys me sufficiently I'll make them sit through the hour long recording of my island tour. I had intended to see the north shore in the afternoon but I was far too tired so I chilled out in my hotel instead, which is partly what a vacation should be like.

Each of the three evenings I ate dinner at the bar in the Olympic Cafe. On the first evening Lisa was there and introduced me to everybody within earshot. The staff were all very nice and Greg even gave me a free beer on the second evening when he was on duty. It was a really nice feeling walking in and hearing "Hello, Matthew" from people as I passed by. I felt like I was in Cheers, "where everybody knows my name".

Kauai is definitely my favourite of the three Hawaiian islands that I visited, although it seemed the least Hawiian in culture. Each one was better than the last and it ended on a completely different, and better, note than it started on in Waikiki. Now I must leave my tropical paradise and return to cold Seattle.