September 2008 Archives

We started the last day in Hawaii snorkeling at the beach right by our condo. The surf's been pretty rough but it wasn't too bad, and we had a huge school of fish pass by us (we took some movies).

For lunch we went to the questionably-named Puka Dog (pronounced "pooka", not "puke-a"). They have awesome hot dogs, including veggie ones, with tropical relishes and Hawaiian mustard. I was a little skeptical, but they were great. Even the chickens hung out looking for scraps.

In the afternoon we finally went over to the park right across the street. It has a Heiau, which according to wikipedia is a "Hawaiian Temple", but that's giving it a lot of credit. It's more like low rock walls.

Here's our tiny photo set for the day.

And three fish movies:
One
Two
Three

Tomorrow: three flights and 15 hours of travel! Don't expect pictures.

Today we went to the Allerton Garden in the National Tropical Botanical Garden. We took lots of pictures and were followed around by the park's cat for a while.

We saw a cool fountain that was something like 150 feet long. The water flowing into it was perfectly smooth, but when it exited it was bobbing up and down, and sounded like a heartbeat. Katy has a video of it here.

Overall a pretty mellow day.

Photostream is here.

Today was Waimea Canyon. We started out driving to the top and hitting all the lookouts. It was something like 4000 feet of elevation gain so we had great views of everything.

After doing all the driving, we parked and went on a couple mile hike through and along a portion of the canyon. It was great being more off the beaten path and seeing parts of the canyon up-close that we could only see from across the way from the lookouts.

There were definitely a couple places that had me nervous. Okay, that's an understatement. Evidently not all the hikers we ran into were as phased though, one just hopped right down to a path along a huge dropoff as if it was a suburban sidewalk.

People are evidently not concerned about bacteria either, judging by the guy who was swimming in a pond by a small waterfall next to a sign warning about bacterial contamination. We opted to not dive in.

After the brutal climb out, we stopped for some shave ice, and MAN was it good. They shave a block of ice with a razorblade so you end up with a cup of little flecks of flavored ice. And at the bottom of the ice is a scoop of macadamia ice cream. So good. Every city should have one.

The waves on the south shore were pretty good when we got back to the condo, so I took some pictures of the surfers too.

Our photostream for today is here.

Tomorrow: National Tropical Botanical Gardens!

Today was pretty much waterfall day.

We started out hiking down a little path to Ho'opi'i falls (memo to Hawaiians, ease up on the apostrophes). It was pleasant and a cool, shaded walk, an easy start to the day.

From there we drove to 'Opaeka'a falls, which was more of a scenic overlook -- you couldn't get very close to them, but the contrast between the mountain in the foreground and falls in the distance was dramatic.

While there we saw a crazy chicken trying to hop up into the bumper of the parked car in front of us and all her chicks scurrying around waiting for this great thing that she was undoubtedly going to extract from the car. Unfortunately for them all they ultimately got was an excited toddler that noticed them and chased them out of there.

Next up was Wailua falls which was also sort of a scenic overlook but much closer. These falls fell into a small circular basin with cliffs on all sides. It was sort of crowded so we didn't stick around too long.

Finally we went to Kipu falls, which are a pair of small waterfalls that flow into a quarry-style pond. There were a bunch of locals there jumping off the cliffs and out of the trees and off the rope swing that was rigged up. It looked like a lot of fun, and was VERY out-of-the-way, as the pictures of the "trail" back to it can attest.

Katy got a nice video of one of the better ropeswings.

Here's our photostream for the day.

Tomorrow: Waimea Canyon!

We got up pretty early this morning and drove to the north side of the island to do a hike on the Kalalau Trail on the Na Pali coast. It's two miles long and has a decent amount of ups and downs as you walk along the cliffs overlooking the ocean.

The hike was going great when I had a bit of equipment malfunction -- about a quarter mile in, the sole of my right hiking boot decided it was tired and wanted to fall off. At first it was just the back and I tried tying it on with my shoelace, but the front came off shortly afterwards.

Not to be outdone, a few minutes later my left sole gave up the ghost, and there I was, soleless in the first half of the hike. We decided to keep going, and while the rubber padding lasted it worked pretty well -- the rocks were a bit slippery but not too bad. By the end of the hike, though, I'd eaten through all the padding rubber and was walking on the plastic inserts so the shoes weren't really doing a whole lot for me. But we did almost the whole hike, about 3 hours worth, and I made it back alive.

The hike itself was beautiful, and other than the first bit not as strenuous as I thought it was going to be. The view of the initial beach was amazing, and we got to see a bunch of cliffs that you can't except by hiking and helicopter.

Once we finished up the hike, we were pretty tired and hot, so having a beach right at the trailhead was perfect. I'm sure after a while all the beaches kind of sound the same -- gorgeous surroundings, blue water, lots of fish to chase around snorkeling, etc. Pretty rough, I know.

On the way back down to the south coast where our condo is, we stopped at the Kilauea Lighthouse which is also a small wildlife (mostly birds) sanctuary. We got some good pictures (including one of a bird that sort of divebombed me!), and continued our way back south.

After a failed attempt at getting some shave ice (yes it's "shave" not "shaved") we had to settle for some ice cream at the local town before we collapsed, exhausted, back at the condo.

Here's the photostream for the day.

We got up early and walked over to the nice little beach by our condo to do some snorkeling. It took us a little while to find the best spot but once we did there were a TON of fish everywhere and the water was really clear. Sadly we ended up taking a lot of pictures of fish butt (and one inexplicable movie of nothing but underwater rock), but we'll definitely be back there so we'll try to get some better shots and videos next time.

Once the sun started getting sufficiently intense, we headed over to Koloa, the little town right nearby, to pick up the leftover groceries that we didn't want in bulk (I really didn't need two pounds of peanut butter from CostCo, for example). While we were there we picked up some reef shoes, so we won't have to wear our sports sandals while snorkeling any more -- I'm sure this will make Kent and his hatred of sports sandals happy.

About lunchtime we hung out at the condo and did my family's fantasy football draft. I managed to pick up a pretty good team I think, but it looks like I've got the toughest matchup in the first week so we'll see how it goes.

After that we hiked through the cliffs off of Shipwreck Beach, which was nice but really hot. Finally we went to Spouting Horn to see the blowhole -- but it's actually a dual hole and the second hole just blows air and makes strange moaning sounds. We walked down a bit near it and managed to not get swept into the ocean. Katy got a good video of it. And then we chased some wild chickens around.

Photostream is here.

Tomorrow: Big hike along the Na Pali coast!

Short entry today, we mostly spent the day traveling.

We got up not too early and headed to the airport. There was a little excitement when security carted off some French-Canadians that were sitting near us. We had no idea what they'd done, but they didn't make the flight. My guess is that they mouthed off to someone they shouldn't have.

After getting to Kauai, we headed to the condo which is just about perfect. It's compact with a nice amount of space for the two of us and a large balcony overlooking the ocean. It's a little warm during the day, but it cools off the moment the sun goes down.

Once we dropped all our stuff at the condo we took the world's nicest drive to the CostCo with the world's most scenic backdrop. I didn't do an official survey of CostCos, but I'm confident in my assessment.

This evening drove over to a nearby restaurant and had some good fish (along with a ridiculously large macadamia ice cream dessert).

Only three pictures today.