For my final night of camping before hopping a flight to Los Angeles, I chose the driest place on the island — knowing I would probably need to dry out my tent before packing it up. The main perimeter road around Kauai dead-ends at either side of the northwestern Na Pali ranges. One side is very wet (near the YMCA where I camped), and this other side was very dry. In fact, it reminded me a bit of Australia and even had one of the nicest beaches I had come across in Hawaii with broad banks of white sand running for miles along the coast. The drive into this area, known as Polihale State Park, was pretty far off the beaten path. There were miles of dirt roads to traverse to get to the very end of the line where the Na Pali Cliffs started, but it was a very serene place to camp for the night, and my neighbouring campers all actually seemed to be travellers themselves. It was a very nice way to spend my last night of camping on the island.
One interesting characteristic of this most western point of the most western inhabited Hawaiian Island was all the secret U.S. government installations. Along the clifftops and on the sand, there were mysterious installations for NASA, the U.S. Military, and the Hawaiian National Guard.
