Kauai was my favorite island. SOO beautiful with a laid back, relaxing vibe but a lot of outdoor activities. I would've loved to stay there longer. Our first day was exploring the city of Po'ipu. Matt has some business acquaintances who are building a resort there and he wanted to take a peek. Just as we started heading off toward the city we were pulled over by a cop! Luckily we were only given a warning as they were just doing a training exercise and pulled over almost everyone passing by. I asked him a few questions about the beaches nearby and he warned us to be careful... 11 people had died in strong currents in the last 2 months alone! ... A road on the way to Po'ipu... lovely.
We stopped at Sprouting Horn Beach Park... kind of like the ocean blow-hole version of Old Faithful. For some reason I only took video instead of pictures of the blow hole but I did take a picture of this wild chicken... they are everywhere.
The following pictures are of our kayaking trip that afternoon. We kayaked about 5 miles up a river and then hiked through a lush forest a couple of miles to a waterfall. The kayaking, hike, and lunch at the waterfall were all wonderful! This is one of my other favorite things we did on the trip. All these pictures are in order from us pulling out of the river and hiking towards the falls.
Oh wow, this is cold... are we really going to do this?!
We all braved the cold to have our obligatory picture under the waterfall. Matt was such a trooper to go in because his eye pressure was really bothering him at this point in the day but I think the freezing water temperature helped - or at least took his mind off it. ;) Best story of the trip: Mark and Joann went into the waterfall before Matt and I did. While they were behind the falls everyone on the rocky beach could clearly hear Joann's amplified yell to Mark, "say it, say the line." To which Mark hollers back at the top of his lungs in a dramatic voice, "Where ever you go, I WILL find you!!" Everyone on the beach (There were at least a dozen other people) cracked up and when Mark and Joann came out of the water they had no idea we could all hear their conversation. Apparently, that line is from "Last of the Mohicans" and it's an inside joke between the two of them... we were all in on the joke that day. :)
Finished with the hike - kayaking back down the river.
The last day in Kauai was spent at the beach. The ship was leaving the port right after lunch so we didn't have time for much of anything else, which was fine by us; nothing better than ending your trip relaxing on the sand! We read for a while and then rented stand up paddle boards again. We took our first picture and realized we don't have the ocean in the background... 2nd try ended up blurry so we'll just use them both. :)
Before heading back to Oahu, the boat took us past the Napali coastline... incredible! Someday we want to come back and do some overnight hiking in that area.
On our way home. The bad thing about going to Hawaii is the full day of traveling each way. The best thing about our travel day was sitting in these massage chairs. Seriously, I wanted to cry it felt so good... Matt and I kept feeding the machine money like we were addicts. I'm considering buying myself, ummm, I mean Matt, one of those chairs for Christmas. ;)
Well, we're home now. We made some wonderful memories with some good friends. We may have provided Drew and Toree with some "birth control" by having them watch our kids (Sorry Kim!) but we're so grateful we had a chance to get away with each other. :)
Kauai was our favorite too. And yes, holy wow...Napali Coast is amazing, isn't it?? I have a friend that just last month did a big couple days hike there. She said it was ridiculously hard but that it was the most beautiful thing she's ever done.
ReplyDeleteAll of your pictures are beautiful! I probably would have wimped out at the waterfall...it would have taken me all day to warm back up:)). I would have loved the kayaking though, Ty and I were supposed to go in Alaska, but our excursion was cancelled the night before. :(
ReplyDelete( I will say that babysitting four children when you have none can be a powerful deterent to childbearing.) HA HA HA!
The kids were lucky to get the babysitting $$. Toree's car had two cracked blocks and a leaking gasket...it cost almost $1000 to fix it :/. Better than exploding I guess:).
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