Today was a day for cruising the island. Early in the day as we were driving, not too far from Princeville, I spotted a sign just off the little Kuhio highway, and shrieked for a stop. Turns out, it was the overlook for the Hanalei National Wildlife Refuge, I had unsuccessfully searched for last Sunday. There it was - a HUMONGOUS valley - hidden in plain sight!
Sadly, as thrilled as I was to at last discover the refuge, I must say, there was not a beast nor fowl visible in the great
expanses below us in the valley. Of course, had there been a thousand birds down there, for the distance, I doubt I would have known what I was looking at anyway.
The refuge is full of endangered plants and wildlife, so is closed to the public, and so I was happy to at least get a grand view of the operations. The ponds are great habitat for birds I saw earlier in the week, like the Hawaiian Gallinules, Coots and Koloa (Hawaiian Duck).
The refuge has around 180 acres of Taro fields
We decided to drive around down by the ocean so we took the serpentine roads down to the beach.
There was a little riverlet that ran down to the ocean, and we spotted some interesting little critters along its shores.
You can't see it from this photo, but on the far shore...
baseball sized gray crabs wandered around the shore
There were lots of Hawaiian orb spiders on the shore too... they were about the span of ping-pong balls
We headed off, along the shore near Anini Beach, and I happened to look up and I went ballistic! A Great Frigatebird was soaring along overhead. Miracaulously I managed to get several good shots of the huge pelagic bird, all the more miraculous as I got my shots through the car windshield and the moon roof. Talk about your dumb luck.
Great Frigate bird, or 'Iwa, as seen through the moon roof
After much sight seeing, we stopped for lunch at the Pono Market in Kapaa. It was a wonderland of local Hawaiian chow, and a nightmare for the 'I like my food plain' folk. Here's my lunch, below. Yummy comes to mind. Really. It does.
Clockwise from white rice, Spicy Korean Clam Poke, Kimchee
(spicy/fermented cabbage) and Pork Laulau (Pork steamed in taro leaves)
Afterwards we walked off lunch at the open air market of Kapaa.
colorful cloth homages to the sea
I didn't get much at the market at all - GOOD CLAIRE! I try keep souvineer buying to a bare minimum. I only bought a v. inexpensive shell lei at the market, which only put me back $6. But, a little later we visited a couple of waterfalls, the most impressive being the double, Wailua Falls.
Wailua Falls
There was a cool Moke there, selling baskets he made of coconut leaves and I was SOLD. Had to buy this one, with a cunning little coconut leaf grasshopper on it.
Coconut Leaf Art
Is that cool or what? No clue how I'm going to get it home, but get it home I will! I would have bought it without the grasshopper, but the guy added a second freebee, a cute, woven rose, which you can see on the side of the basket in the photo below.
The basket man and his pooch are not flipping the bird, they're giving me the 'Shaka'
The falls were really pretty, and they rained into a deep pool in a bowl-like pool. They used the falls back in the day, for the TV show, Fantasy Island. The Plane! The Plane! But you know my favorite thing about the falls was the White-tailed Tropicbirds that flew up from the valley bottoms. Oooo! Yet another blown chance to get photos of those streamer-tailed beauties.
Steve with a coconut Butterfly fish over Wailua Falls
I am proud that I managed to control my shop-till-you-drop impulses, because tonight was our big 'buy up all the chocolate and nuts on the island' extravaganza. I think when we leave there won't be a chocolate covered macadamia nut on the island. Really. After the shoping we dropped Steve off at the airport. Instead of going out for dinner tonight, we finished off our ample quantities of left overs accumulated the past few days. Know what? We still ate like Hawaiian royalty. *burp*
We started off our day, dropping the Keiki off at Ke'e Beach. They wanted to hike up to the summit to view the ocean. While they did that Ron, Jeannie & I had a leisurely drive along the Kuhio Highway.
Through the windshield shot
Jeannie & I shared a late morning snack of a pulled pork sandwich, which I then shared with some uninvited guests - a pile up of recently fledged Zebra Doves. I don't know what's more embarrassing, sharing spit with wild birds (which I realize is a no-no for countless reasons) or just watching myself eat.
Uh... hey, what'd you say we never again discuss that intimate Doves/Claire moment, alright? It'll be our little secret, 'K?
Cave, across the road from the beach
Above the cave, house plants gone wild
We picked up the Keiki after their mountainside hiking, and did some sightseeing around the north of Kaua'i.
Everywhere you look, magical lagoons
I love this shot - it looks so dreamlike in its beauty
We actually went back to the time share later that afternoon to reconnoiter. With Steve being a Hawaii virgin, and it being so close to Stephie's birthday, it was unanimous, we just had to hit a Luau. I mean, could we send a Kaikunane home without a dose of poi?
Once inside the compound, at one's choice you can get onto a tram for a guided tour. The grounds are divided into areas representing the different Polynesian lands, like the Philippines, Samoa and even Japan. There is breadfruit, macadamia nuts, Jackfruit and other exotic tropical fruit everywhere. The tour guide had a tale to tell about just about everything we saw.
Jeannie & Ron on the Tram
Next the tram unloaded and all watched as a member of the Smith family, welcomed us and officiated at the opening of the Imu - the giant pit in which the luau pork and meats are slow roasted.
Strapping young Mokes blow the conch shells over the Imu
After the Imu was striped, everyone headed over to the massive covered dining hall, where it was all free Mai Tais & wine, with sodas for the keiki. This was my third Luau over the years, and this one seemed to me to specialize in a few dishes done very well, over loads of dishes done 'so-so'. I give the Smith family feast two Shakas up!
Now we were all full of Hawaiian style din-din and Steve was no longer a Luau-virgin, it was time for some Polynesian style entertainment. Wow. Just wow. It. Was. Awesome.
For starters, across the moat from the audience, the Goddess Pele herself, rose from a fiery volcanoe, Then, when she'd spoke her piece, there was some DANCING!
The dancing was Tahitian, Hawaiian, and New Zealand, but even Japan and the Philipines were represented. My favorite, last up, was the Fire Dancer.
Someone enjoyed having her picture taken with the dancers
Today we were all up at the crack o' dawn to take Stephie & her boyfriend Steve to their meet up point for a snorkling boat trip along the Na Pali coast. Once we dropped off them off at the harbor, myself, Ron & Jeannie were off to see some sights. What? Where did Steve come from? Aw, well, 'Snookims' flew in from Sacramento yesterday for a few days with his widdle 'Honey Boo-boo'.
We visited the tiny town of Hanapepe to have a walk on its historic wooden, hanging bridge that was built at the turn of the century - the last century - so the locals could cross the river to work in the sugar cane fields.
Approach to the Hanging Bridge of Hanapepe
Now, I've seen my fair share of hanging bridges in oodles of movies, and always thought, "You put one foot in front of the other, what's the big deal?" So I thought, right up until I put my foot on that crickity, wiggly-piggly, shaky, swinging wooden bridge and WOOOOOW MAMA!
Get Motion Sickness? Then stay the hell off of this bridge!
There is a second hanging bridge near Waimea, so we decided to visit it next. You can see a bit of it below. There wasn't any place to park on that narrow dirt road so we did a drive-by viewing.The narrow - and I'm sure shaky-as-hell bridge - crosses the Menehune Ditch. It's a youngish bridge, built in 1996 after Hurricane Iniki that hit the islands in 1992.
The Waimea Hanging bridge crosses the Menehune Ditch
The rocks on the left side of the road are part of an ancient watercourse, or ʻauwai, remnants of which still run parallel to the road. The waterway irrigated the taro fields. We saw openings from which you can view the water path, but we didn't climb up to see it because were just weren't up for breaking our ankles on the rocks.
Captain Hook Cook Monument in beautiful downtown Waimea
Lovely mug for a ghastly cup o' Joe
After our bridge adventures, we visited Waimea's downtown - and I use the term loosely - where we strolled around the Captain Cook Monument. Not very large, but certainly impressive enough. There was signage that explained how in its day, Waimea was quite the busy port of call.
Our next 'port of call' was breakfast at a little restaurant by the monument. Great food! On Ron's request they even fixed us cottage potatoes that weren't even on the menu. It was one of the best breakfasts ever, except for one little detail - the coffee sucked! Ron & Jeannie couldn't prevent me from commenting such to the waitress. I told her how great the meal was, then asked why the coffee was dishwater. She said the magic word - Yuban. I imagine the islands are famous for their coffee, but these days they had to cut corners somewhere - what a shame.
Post breakfast we decided on a little walk at Fort Elizabeth, a Russian ruins just south of Waimea.
Up on the Fort Wall
Looking down into the old fort ruins
What is left of the fort wall in the distance
We decided we were doing things a little too sedately, so our next item on the agenda was some surfing, Kaua'i style!
Wahines just wanna have fun!
Ron catching a curl!
Wooo hoooooo! Just before I wiped out!
Our 'surfing' adventure was at a shop where we ogled jewelry and even some Hawaiian shell leis that were understandably astronomical in prices, which can range from $100 to $300,000. Yikes! The lei require matching and arranging the shells that may be wildly scarce and found only on certain beaches. The leis are wearable art and are certainly not meant for butterfingered wahine such as myself.
It was too soon to pick up 'the kids' so we visited the Spouting Horn. It's a hole just on the shore, and it... well it spouts. Legend has it, the hissing of the hole is due to the gigantic lizard that is trapped in the rocks. Don't know if there is a lizard down there, but it sounded like a lizard that's not using its asthma inhaler.
Later in the afternoon we picked up the keiki, that is, Steve & Stephie, then headed to a spot Ron was anxious to show us. There was a bit of cliff where bits of cars and chassis and such protruded from the iron stained soil.
You can see bit of a turquoise car body sticking out of the soil
Just off the cliff was a creepy abandoned burial grounds where seemingly untended graves were scattered about. I picked up two large land snail shells from a grave site, taking them to show Jeannie. She had a fit, "PUT THOSE BACK WHERE YOU FOUND THEM!" She wasn't about to let me inadvertently haul any Chinese or Italian ghosts back to with us to our time share! I put the shells back where I found them - had to - don't know how to contact Ghost Busters so far from NYC.
Just a bit away from the auto graveyard cliffs was glass beach. A lot of glass bottles and such were dumped on the beach and over time, washing by the surf smoothed them into tiny frosty looking pebbles. I think at one time the glass - now looking like sand - had lots of green it it. Gauging by the number of people Jeannie & I watched, scooping up HUGE quantities of the glassy sand, it's no wonder there isn't much green sand remaining. We guess that eventually, there will be no glass in the sand at all.
Click the pic for a closer look.
The Glass Beach
We hit a couple of other spots that afternoon, including a hidden waterfall, which the powers that be fenced off. Party poopers! For dinner we had local fast food, called, "Chicken in a Barrel" because it is bbq'd in re-purposed oil drums. Mine was delish, and each serving was enough food to keep three of me fed. Lovely day!
