Kaua'i was the first Hawaiian Island English explorer Capt. James Cook stumbled upon in 1778, while sailing from Tahiti toward North America. While it has long been believed that Cook was the first European to set foot in the Islands he first did so at Waimea, on Kaua'i's southwest coast recent evidence has some historians claiming that Spanish sailors may have visited the Islands more than a century earlier.
The oldest of the main Hawaiian Islands, it is believed the volcano that created Kaua'i first began erupting some 10 million years ago. Once rising more than 10,000 feet above sea level, Olokele Volcano has since eroded down to two main peaks the Wai'ale'ale (5,148 feet) and Kawaikini (5,243 feet) with the rest of the mountain sinking to form the crater that is home to Alaka'i Swamp. Alaka'i Swamp is the largest high-elevation swamp in the world and the starting point for Waimea River, the longest river in the Islands. The 3,000-foot-deep Waimea Canyon, dubbed "The Grand Canyon of the Pacific," is also the product of these erosive forces.