Manawaiopuna Falls: Hawaiian Paradise
Manawaiopuna Falls , also known as Rainbow Falls, exists on the island of Hawaii near the town of Hilo in the Wailuku River State park. It is called the Rainbow Falls because visitors to the falls can often see a rainbow formed from the rising mists in the early mornings.
There is a legend told by the Hawaiian people that surrounds the Manawaiopuna Falls. The god Hina lives in a cave behind the waters of the Rainbow Falls and she used to be hounded every now and then by a large lizard named Mo’o Kuna. The lizard lived disrupt the river and falls by sending torrents of water and rocks over the falls. One time in a storm the nasty Mo’o moved a large rock into the river downstream of the falls to block it. This caused the water level to rise so that it began spilling into Hina's cave. Hina called to her son Maui, a demigod, for help. He paddled his canoe from the island of Maui and up the mouth of the Wailuku River to the block in the river. Maui split the rock in two with a single blow and released the pent up water. In retribution Maui called on Pele to send lava into the river to drive out the Mo’o from its hiding place in an area of deep potholes upstream called the ‘boiling pots’ now.
The lava caused the water to boil and killed Mo’o. The area that the Mo’o hid in to escape Maui are a series of potholes where the water eroded into an old lava flow under the river bed. The potholes are likely connected underneath and they become very turbulent during the winter storms. This turbulence makes them appear as if they are boiling. The Hawaiian islands were formed from the build up of recurrent lava flows so its fairly common to find riverbeds that are made of old lava flows. At one point the Wailuku River had managed to erode a riverbed into two old lava flows, the Mauna Kea and the Mauna Loa when another volcanic eruption filled in the river bed about 10,000 years ago. The new lava flow is called the ‘Anuenue flow.
Presently visitors can see remnants of the old riverbed, very large boulders and rocks half buried in the new lava flow. Rainbow falls is a little on the small side compared to many of the world’s more notable waterfalls at 80 feet tall but it is still famous for its mythical history and the rainbows that appear every morning. Around the falls grows many different varieties of plants, especially since Hawaii is such a tropical climate. Among the plants that can be seen around the falls are Pine trees, and Bamboo.
There is another waterfall with Rainbow Falls as its name on Kauai. It is substantially taller at 360 feet, but still on the fairly small side. This Rainbow Falls on Kauai was featured in the beginning of the movie, ‘Jurassic Park.’