If you have never been to Hawaii, go...now. Seriously, Hawaii was so amazing in every way. And, if you go, go to Kauai and stay in the North end of the island. When we flew into Lihue, the main town on Kauai, we weren't that impressed. Lots of traffic, tourist spots, and crappy restaurants. But, the farther North you drove (we stayed in Hanalei, about 40 minutes from the airport) the greener, quieter, and more peaceful it got. We couldn't have picked a better spot, or a more relaxing place to stay. Take a look at the pictures of the
Surfboard House, and read
Jason's review on Yelp (hint, hint he's Jason H). We were literally 1 block back from Hanalei Bay and a 10 minute walk to downtown Hanalei where we got coffee at Java Kai and ate at Baracuda and The Dolphin (ate there twice we loved it so much). We also bought fresh wahoo fish one night from The Dolphin's fresh fish market and grilled it on our lenai. We kept a nice balance between "doing" and just "being" on this trip and I took about 300 photos along the way. Here are some of the highlights....
Hiking the Kalalau Trail:
From the trail, a view down the Napali Coast. Only accessible by boat or foot; no roads.
Catamaran. We looked into taking a catamaran tour down Napali Coastline, but they were all like 5 hours, included crappy lunch and deep sea scuba diving -- no thank you.
It was so lush and green. It looked like a jungle; not surprising that this is where they filmed Jurassic Park. I half expected a T-Rex to come out of the clearing.
2 miles in the trail goes to Hanakapiai beach.
We found a cave!
Wild roosters are everywhere! They escaped from farms after a hurricane in the 90's and nobody bothered to round them up.
Oldest missionary church on Kauai
Farmer's Market findings on Saturday. I ate my weight in pineapple -- delicious!
Hanalei dock
Watching the sunset...
Kauai lighthouse. First lighthouse in Kauai to guide ships picking up sugar cane that went to California for processing.
Secret Beach and lava pools
Jason in a lava pool
Our sweet ride -- thanks to Richard!
Surfers in Hanalei Bay. We didn't bother with surf lessons while we were there, but it was fun enough to watch people who really know what they were doing.
Walking through sugar cane to the Kipu Falls
Kipu Falls
Waimau Falls
Flowers, flowers, and more flowers...
Our last night at dinner before we took the red-eye home
Seen enough pictures yet? Ok, just a couple more...
Jason working the grill
Pineapple!
We did a lot of this too...
Believe it or not there are other photos that I haven't downloaded from our smaller camera and my phone. We went sea kayaking one day and took the smaller camera. I'll post those pictures soon.
We're already planning our next trip to Hawaii - 5 yr., 10 yr., 30 yr. anniversary? I'll guess we'll just have to see. At least we have our memories and hundreds of photos to make it last.
xoxo
