January 2011
Howdy from Kauai
We have finally made it to Kauai, arriving at the Wyndham Resort about 3:30pm today. But first let me tell you about the start of the trip.
We left San Diego on Wednesday morning. We flew Hawaiian Airlines to Oahu and all in all it was a good flight.
The Hyatt hotel that we stayed in on Waikiki was directly across from the beach and the statue of the "Duke". Not John Wayne, but some old surfer dude. Very nice hotel especially since it was "free". Laura had earned 2 nights "free" stay at the Hyatt hotel for booking her clients into Hyatt hotels in Hawaii. We had an ocean view room on the 6th floor. Nice room.
We ate dinner on Wednesday night at "Duke's". Food was good but I think it was overpriced. Had a cocktail before dinner called a “Lava Flow”. Now that was darn good.
Thursday we hopped into the rental car and took off on a trip around the island. We found that we were geographically challenged when after we had been on the road awhile and Laura thought we were going the wrong way. Pulled off the freeway and stopped and broke out the map. Her first question was if north is straight ahead then is east to our right or the left. We did find that we had been going the correct direction so we luckily found our way back to the freeway. That is not as easy as it is in San Diego.
 |
| Garlic Shrimp dinner from the shrimp trucks, north shore area |
 |
| Kailea as seen from the Pali lookout |
We then headed with our new directions for the Pali Lookout. Drove right by the turnoff so we had to drive about 10 miles over the mountain to find a place to make a U-turn and come back. Did find the lookout but it was getting cloudy and was quite windy so it was probably not worth the effort. We did see the Cheerleaders for the Pro Bowl. They came with their handler just as we pulled in. They were swamped with tourists taking their pictures except for a Japanese couple who were wondering who those girls were and why were they dressed in such skimpy clothing.
 |
| Hanalei Bay |
We then headed back towards Waikiki but we stopped off at Hanalei Bay. It was a little park and also part of the Whale sanctuary. It was all closed up. But we saw these small furry animals running around the sidewalks and up into the plantings. A couple of ladies said that they were mongoose. Or should that be mongeese since there were more than one?
By now it was starting to get dark and we still had to find our way back to the hotel and the parking structure. One of our challenges was the street signs seemed to be very small and the street names were 47 letters long most of them starting with a "W". So we had a heck of a time getting from the freeway back down to the Waikiki beach area. Then on the first attempt we came out about 1 1/2 block short of the hotel. So it was around the blocks, find a street going the right way and then try again. This time we were successful but the stress level was at "Orange". Since we had eaten quite a bit during the course of the day we retired to our room without dinner.
Friday morning, we arose at the crack of dawn. OK, so it was 7AM. We walked up the street to Moose McGillicutties for breakfast. Laura had read in a travel book that they had a $1.99 breakfast. They might have had it at one time but not now, we did have a get one meal free coupon so we had a good breakfast. We then returned to the hotel and checked out. It turned out it really was "free", even the $28 a day parking charge was covered.
 |
| Our condo on Kauai |
Well, that's about all for now. Tomorrow we have a welcome breakfast at the resort and then we are going do some exploring or maybe just go swimming.
Further adventures from Princeville
On our first email, I had explained that we had arrived at the Wyndham Resort and then told of our adventures getting here. Friday afternoon/evening was filled with domestic chores. Getting unpacked, deciding who sleeps on what side of the bed, running to the local grocery to buy a few supplies and then we settled in to relax.
 |
| Wailua Falls |
We stopped on our trip south to see the Wailua Falls which feeds the Wailua River, the largest river on Kauai. Laura bought a grass grasshopper from a vendor there. It reminded her of the one she had purchased on the Chinese border years ago. Our plan was to drive to Spouting Horn and sight see along the way. As we turned off the main highway en route there we went thru what they called the Tree Tunnel. There was about a mile of trees, just a single row on either side of the road but they were so close together that it was difficult to see between them and their branches met in the middle so it was as if you were driving in a tunnel. We arrived at Spouting Horn.. It was not a real big area but nicely kept grounds with a overlook of the lava flow that went into the sea. The horn was a blowhole which had some pretty spectacular jets of seawater when the waves came in, more interesting was the breathing sounds as the waves pushed the water into the blowhole other opening would have escaping air. We also were able to barely see whales blowing about 1/4 mile off the coast. We are hoping on Monday that when we take the catamaran trip we will see the whales up close.
Having reached our destination, we headed back towards Princeville. We stopped in Kapaa for some more shaved ice and then walked around the little town checking out all the tourist shops. We stopped at Anahola on the suggestion of the gal at the check in desk, they had a little farmer's market and Reggie was cooking huli huli chicken and wild boar. So we stopped to pick up a plate of each for our dinner. Lots of food, corn on the cob, roasted potatoes. It was very good and inexpensive.
 |
| Kilauea lighthouse |
Sunday morning, we beat the chickens up. Laura witnessed a rarity in her life, an actual sunrise. By the time we got to the tour office, it was clouding up and by the time we got to the airport our flight was grounded. It was raining. Not really hard but the helicopter that had gone out at 8 am returned to say that they had not been able to see anything so the flights were canceled and we had to rebook for Thursday.
Having seen most of the stuff between the resort and Lihue yesterday and the fact that it was raining we headed back to the resort. We did stop off at the Kilauea lighthouse but did not go onto the grounds. We had a nice view of the lighthouse from a vantage point up the cliff. The rain had finally stopped so we decided to drive to the end of the road instead of just going back to the resort. It was not far, maybe only 10 miles. Lots of greenery, but since it was a narrow road, the greenery was closer. We stopped at a couple of beaches. No surfing or swimming to speak of since the currents are so strong on this side of the island. We visited the Wet and Dry caves. The Dry cave could have been large enough to seat 500 people. Laura was a little nervous, there were some pretty big spider webs hanging down from the roof. The wet cave had a lake in it. No swimming allowed. Road got quite narrow and there were several one way bridges to cross.
Now we are back at the resort, having had lunch here, relaxing by reading and doing laundry. Tomorrow the plan is to do the catamaran trip with snorkeling and a picnic. It will take most of the day.
 |
| Dolphins alongside our catamaran |
Monday morning we were up and on the road early again. We had to be at Port Allen by 7:30 am. It was not a bad drive; I was surprised that the road had been set up to allow autos going south to use one of the north bound lanes, So it really sped up the drive. When we got to the Captain Andy's we found out that because of the weather the previous day, we would not be going up the Na Pali Coast as planned. The storm caused 20 foot waves there, so we ended up going up the South and East coast with 2-3 foot waves. We had a good ride. It was a nice catamaran. We did spend most of the time under power but they did kill the engines and put up the sails for awhile which was really a nice experience. We had spinner dolphins jumping out of the water near us, had a pod of dolphins escort us for quite a while. Saw several humpbacked whales on the surface, Laura got a pretty good picture of the tail of one when it dove. We did stop for about 45 minutes to snorkel. The water was fairly deep, maybe 40 feet so we did not get up close to any of the reef fish. We did find a green sea turtle resting on a sandy place between the reefs. That was fun. The picnic was lunch on board after we finished snorkeling. That was a little disappointing because I thought they were going to land us on a beach for the picnic.
 |
| Waimeea Canyon |
On our trip back north, we stopped at Kapaa at a shrimp truck to buy dinner. It was another good meal.
Tuesday was our easy day. We just had to sit through a 90 minute time share presentation. Then we had the Luau to attend that evening. It was the best luau that we had ever attended. The dancers were very good and the show was a presentation in song and dance of how the islands were populated from Tahiti. The food was very tasty and we learned the correct way to eat poi. It is a condiment not food stuff.
 |
| Mountain Tubing |
Wednesday we went mountain tubing. We were driven up through a sugar cane plantation and when we reached the highest elevation, we stopped and were given helmets with headlights, rubber/canvas gloves and a large tube. They put us into the old irrigation channel that brought water from top of the area to the cane fields below. The trip was about 3 miles of floating down the channels. The kicker was that most of that was through tunnels that had been carved through the mountain. The tunnels were about 10 foot wide and maybe 7 feet high. Water was only about waist deep and was cool. So we sat in these tubes and floated, spun and bounced our way to the end. It was a lot of fun and the group that was with us was a lot of fun.
 |
| Napali Coast taken from our helicopter flight |
Thursday was the helicopter trip. The good news was that they called and asked if we would rather fly out of the Princeville airport which was about 5 minutes from where we were staying or would we rather drive the 40-45 minutes again to Lihue. We took the local option. There were six of us on the helicopter, a family from Japan, a woman from Canada/Arizona and us. The trip was only about 45 minutes but we covered the entire island, the pilot was telling us all about the areas and the history of the island. We got right up in the canyons to see the areas up close. We took a spin out over the ocean off the Na Pali coast to look at several whales. It was an enjoyable trip just a little too short.
Now we are back in the condo having stuffed ourselves on some pizza and are getting packed for our trip home tomorrow.
Vacations have to come to an end. Fortunately we live in a vacation spot so it is not so sad to be leaving. Plus we get to hug our schnauzers tomorrow. So bye for now. George and Laura.
No comments:
Post a Comment