Goodbye to Kauai

We are heading home. Started our last day with our morning walk after the rains had almost stopped. 

The geckos come out for sun and if you are careful you can get pretty close to see one. Yellow Bunny did her best not to scare one away.

Norm and I then headed out after breakfast along the shore past the Marriott, the Plantation and many other vacation rental homes--are you interested in a nice one just across the road from the ocean, sleeps eight and just $6,000 a week? We ended up at the high end shopping plaza, Kukuiolani, designed for those high-end tourists. Quick coffee and Danish for Norm before heading back. One last stop for the famous Puka Dog with lemonade. So yummy! Maybe an idea for Metchosin Day?? Before packing we had a dip in the refreshing (cool) pool. Heather and Brad drove us to the Lihue airport for our 6:30, now delayed flight to Honolulu. Waiting at the airport means patience! 

We are now in San Francisco. Really nice all night flight that got in 30 minutes early, tail wind? Not a lot to do at 4:30am so we had breakfast. Norm says it's a three-New-York-Times day, as he picked up a day old one in Kauai, then the Thursday paper in Honolulu and Friday's latest in SF, all in 12 hours.

The holiday has been great. A special thanks to Heather and Brad for making the week on Kauai such a good time. The best parts of this holiday -- the warm weather, the fresh fruit, and all the walking. We are now getting ready for the freezing temperatures at home. Yikes! Good thing we packed some woollies. 

Rainy day in paradise

We managed to get our morning walk in and back before the heavens opened and it rained today. Every time we thought it might let up, it rained even harder. An amazing amount of rain. Obviously this is why Kauai is so lush and green. It rains more on Kauai than any where else in the world but not usually here in Poipu crater.

It was quite something to experience. After a while, it resembled a Victoria all-day downpour. 

Even Yellow Bunnym was not impressed. So what do you do if it is raining.....play scrabble. Wanda and Warren came by and the game began, a close contest but won by Heather and Brad. 

Eventually we decided to drive to Lihue, get gas and see what we could find to do. We discovered the Marriott Hotel and had a great walk about.

Nice gardens.

Classy interiors.

The weather station.

The pool.

The elephant statue.

And finally Duke's Bar named after the famous Hawaiian surfer. Yellow Bunny quite enjoyed the outing.

A great way to spend the day when it is raining. And it still is! 

Cave exploration

No morning walk before breakfast but instead Heather, Norm and I set out afterwards for a hike. We went past the Hyatt and followed the coastline walking along sand dunes. What an incredible vista! 

First is Shipwreck beach where I mentioned people have jumped off. Along the coast you can see the rich red rock.

We continued on past Hawaiian burial sites to Gillin's Beach. What Heather didn't tell us that on the way we would come to Makauwani Cave Reserve. Here is a natural amphitheatre carved by ground water and eroded by the elements. 

Volunteers have been cleaning out the area of non-native plants and we were fortunate to be able to go to the cave today. 

After crawling on our hands and knees we entered the sink hole.

You can see stalagmites and stalactites forming. 

There have been archeological digs finding items from long ago. 

The cave may actually empty into the ocean some distance away.

Next we came to a tortoise enclosure. I learned that a turtle can swim and a tortoise stays on land. Yellow Bunny loved the tortoise. 

A little further to see Gillin's Beach before we started our return trip. We saw humpback whales far out spouting water but not close enough to see clearly unfortunately. 

What a great three-hour adventure. 

You can see the coastline that we covered. Once back we managed a quick lunch before heading to Kalaheo where Heather, Brad, Wanda and Warren played golf on a local municipal nine-hole course for only $9 plus rental of clubs and a cart. Such a deal and such a great course. Norm and I instead had coffee/tea, visited a very small farmers' market of  four vendors before hiking to the golf course to catch a ride back with Heather and Brad.

Even Yellow Bunny got in on the action.

We stopped at Wanda and Warren's place near by in Lawai for a beer and ice cream before catching the sunset and heading home for pizza bagels for a late dinner. 

Perfect! 

Flora and fauna of Kauai

During our morning walk we checked out the beautiful flowers along the way. See if you can identify some of these flowers. 

Bird of Paradise.

These are orchids, growing out doors! 

Not sure what this is but it has white petals growing out of the yellow blossom.

Yellow Bunny got stuck in the cactus garden but she wasn't hurt. 

Hibiscus.

Lots of hibiscus right beside our pool. 

As we headed back to our place Heather, Brad and Norm stood under one of the massive trees here. Could be a Monkey Pod tree. Not sure. But they are enormous and gorgeous.

Norm and took the car one last time and headed to Hanapepe, an artist historical town. There lots of art galleries there. First we stopped for breakfast at Kalaheo. Norm's first pancakes since leaving Victoria. He says they aren't quite as good as the one's I make.

At Hanapepe we found the furtherest west book store in the United States, Talk Story.

Here is Norm posing with his Giest magazine. He is hoping that it might get published in their magazine.

We even got to walk across a swing bridge and shop a bit. Norm bought a nice piece of art work. 

And look at this truck almost reminded me of Langford.

Back at our accommodation and a bite to eat Norm and I decided we needed a walk. Brad dropped us off at a near by shopping centre and we then headed home past then old town of Kohola. We think it was about 8 km and took us 1 1/2 hours. Good work out! 

After dinner the four of us drove to the Kauai Beach Resort in Lihue to watch some traditional Hawaiian music. It was the E Kanikapila Kakou, Community Aloha Night. Quite something with 8 musician on stage each telling a personal story of how they got started in music and then playing one of their tunes. There was ukele, steel guitar, slacke guitar, base and some graceful hula dancers. Here are the leis they gave to anyone coming to the show from off the island. That would be Heather and me. 

Waimea Canyon

Up early for a fresh morning walk that took us again past the Hyatt and to a rocky look off at Shipwreck Beach.  It is said that Harrison Ford jumped (his stunt man) from this spot in one of his movies. Not something any of us wanted to do.

After our breakfast of fresh papaya, pineapple and granola Norm and I headed west this time to see the Waimea Canyon. It really is quite spectacular. First stop on the way was to say hello to yet another rooster. They are everywhere! 

The winding road up to the canyon has many places to stop along the way. We hiked about a half mile down before deciding that we really didn't have time to do the full 2 1/2 miles to the river below and then climb back up. But the views along the way were great.

Here is the beginning.

And the colours were amazing especially the red earth.

Looking the other way.

Here is a lookout where you can see the waterfall in the distance. 

And here is a closer look. Some day, more time," we'll hike down. We were actually a long way up, at an elevation of about 3,500 feet before we turned around. The temperature is a fair bit lower up there, in the low60s F. compared to the coast at some 20 degrees warmer 15 miles away down the winding ridge top road. It's amazing terrain, as the photos show -- in some places the ground resembles brown cookie crumbs, others slippery clay. It's all eroding practically as we watch. Just imagine what a rainstorm dropping several inches in a few hours can do.

".

Yellow Bunny was able to handle the heights too. 

On our way back home we had a lunch of papaya seed shrimp tacos and for dessert combinationof  shave ice with pineapple, papaya and passion fruit syrups and a scoop of macadamia nut ice cream. Delicious! 

Next stop the Kauai Coffee Centre. We did a self-guided walkabout. This used to be a sugar plantation until the first coffee trees were planted in the 1980s. Hurricane Iniki in 1992 almost wiped out the new business, but they carried on. Today there are some four million coffee trees of five different arabica varieties. Norm sampled a coffee and checked out the gift store. 

This machine is used to pick the berries off the bushes. The Kauai coffee is OK, but the best Hawaiian coffee apparently is Kona from the big island. 

Once home we had a refreshing swim in the pool here at Poi Pu Crater. Found out about the Sea Hawks Super Bowl win and finished the day off with dinner with friends, Heather Brad, Wanda and Warren. Nice.