August, 2008 Kaua’i, Hawaii, USA
Paradise, The Garden Island and Kaua’i are reportedly synonymous but there is always a serpent or two in Paradise. The serpents in Kaua’i are in fact roosters! Wild chickens frequent most of the island and are designated pests that must not be feed but no one seems to have any eradication plans either. Our home on Kaua’I, Plantation Hale, had at least 4 of these monsters to wake us at 5.45am everyday. We spied them from the foreshore beaches to the lookouts up the mountain roads.
David expected lush greenery since the island hosts the wettest spot on earth, the high altitude is swamped with over 450 inches of rain a year and indeed it rained almost everyday. It was spitting when we arrived and we drove though a heavy downpour as we neared the airport on our departure. In fact, it rained spasmodically most days but you expect that in the tropics. However, it isn’t all green. Flat areas around the airport have a parched, drought-affected look, the overgrown areas along side the road have an untidy look of a garden in need of some tender loving care including more water and there are bare soil patches of a deep red that rival the Red Centre of Australia.
Neither are gardens particularly prominent outside the resorts. The gardens at our hotel consisted mainly of umbrella trees underplanted with simple 7 petal magnolia bushes pruned to hedges and the prime occupation of the gardeners seem to be tidiness rather than creating colour or mass plantings.
Then our suite was not flash but met our requirements. There were 4 rooms in the suite, which was most fortunate as I was ill for most of our stay with another bout of infected sinuses and bronchitis. Having a comfy sofa allowed me to sit up 24/7 for most of 4 days leaving David to get some sleep at night in the bedroom. Having a kitchen was a boon as we could prepare simple meals saving me the ordeal of trying to get off the sofa and eat out so we lived on simple salads and pan fried meats during our stay. We were not directly on the beach but had a short walk to the beach across a grassed paddock.
The second afternoon, we walked the beach but despite this being “Paradise” surrounded by narrow sandy beaches of coarse yellow sand, you can’t swim at most of it. The beach at our hotel was too steep or rocky to walk on and the rocks extend into the water. No wonder the maps label the beaches as kayaking, snorkelling and surfing, not swimming. Those plastic shoes, Crocs, are the local footwear along with things as they allow people to walk out into the water without hurting their feet. Of the three beaches stated as suitable for swimming, two are merely lagoons suitable for children and wading, not swimming. Here the water seemed not to get above an adult’s hips.
And they have traffic jams in Kaua’i. A section of the main road to the north of the airport is designated “contra flow” which means that in the mornings two of the three lanes are for south bound traffic and the rest of the time the two lanes are for northbound traffic. Otherwise, the roads are too chocked in peak hour. On one occasion, we found the traffic banked up and at a standstill just outside out hotel. We spent most of our last day driving the southern side of the island, usually in a convoy of several vehicles.
This island requires not only a car, but a fly over as well to appreciate its dramatic beauty. The populated areas form 4 distinct zones to the south, east and north. In the south west is the working people’s area with sugar cane and coffee plantations and not particularly attractive towns but just a little to the east of it and you are in the main, more exclusive resort area of Piopu. Here you have the Hyatt and the Sheraton and the supposedly great Poipu Beach where wading is all the go! This is one of the few beaches with lifeguards on duty but there are no flags to swim between. Instead a sign is nailed to the back of a timber shed, presumably the “club house”, telling you to speak to a lifeguard before entering the water! Imagine the thousands of swimmers on Bondi all having to front up to the lifesavers and ask whether it was safe to go in a wading pool!
North of Piopu is the main town of Lihue where the airport is situated on the widest stretch of flat, uninteresting land. Here we not only arrived and “deplaned”, (yes, that is the word) but we also started our light plane trip from here on the Monday morning (day 3 on the island). (See later for the drama of that day!)
We stayed on the Coconut Coast about 20 minutes drive north of the airport because it was more central and less expensive than Piopu. Just up the road are lots of shops including three supermarkets, a drug store and a medical clinic, all of which were put to good use. Almost next door was the Coconut Marketplace where ads informed us was one of the best places for all things Hawaiian. Like our hotel, this marketplace consisted of several plantation style buildings. This architectural style is timber and one or two stores with curved, timber shake roofs. Initially, there were small garden beds with ornaments as well as small, one roomed bure-style shops in the centre of this open-air shopping complex surrounded by more contiguous shops but as you walked further south into the complex the neglect became more evident. Ponds were dry, dirty and in need of fresh paint and gardens neglected. Later we were to see a more modern and attractive US-style mall between Poipu and Lihue but it appeared to lack any island flavour. Still, despite its tatty appearance, we did find a shop or two at the Coconut Marketplace that offered us some attractive items. David found a good quality Aloha shirt (Hawaiian) in more subdued tones than most and at 20% off. He had looked at them in Waikiki but refused to pay the asking price of about $80. Most clothing items are in rayon, totally unsuitable for humid climates like Hawaii or Sydney with only a few in silk or cotton. We both found a pair of Croc thongs in the new slimline style that look dressier than the flat thongs we have seen at home but, I suspect, we’ll find them on the market at home when we look. Lastly, I found some nice tropical Christmas dress decorations I liked a lot. These formed our souvenirs of Kaua’i.
Then, on the north of the island is another more exclusive area with Hanalei Bay the favoured swimming spot and Princeville, the town of exclusive homes set around golf courses. David drove there on the second last day of our stay, as I was too ill to get off the sofa. Here there are attractive beaches, caves and the island’s lighthouse that all make attractive photographs. This is the greener side of the island with lush and often colourful vegetation. However, a lot of effort is needed if this place is to retain the title of the Garden Island. After Princeville the road crosses many single lane bridges before terminating at the Haena State Park. If David’s inability to find a parking spot was anything to go by then this is obviously a popular picnic spot with locals.
Other than this belt of flat coastal land running form the southwest to the north, the island is a stunning collection of peaked black, red and vivid green mountains plunging into the plain or the sea. Steep valleys run from the central mountains to the coast through deep V valleys scored by fast flowing water and ribbon waterfalls plummet from steep canyon walls into the valleys. This is best seen from the air. So on the Monday morning, we went up in a 4 seater, single engine plane. I was not looking forward to it, having no desire to die in a light plane crash. However, I really enjoyed the rich panorama below and found it much preferable to the helicopter ride we had taken at Mt Cook in NZ about 10 years ago. David, on the other hand, who was really quite relaxed about the whole flight was air sick about 10 minutes before we “deplaned”. The poor pilot handled the situation calmly and there wasn’t much I could do from the seat behind David. Still we saw some of the famous sites of Kaua’I – movie sets where Mitzi Gaynor washed that man right out of her hair and the beach used for Bali Hi. Then there was the cave into which James Bond flew his plane.
On our final full day on the island we drove to the south-west then travelled up to the Waimea Canyon along the Waimea Canyon Drive. A stunning short waterfall carved into red rock caused us to stop and edge our car off to the side of the narrow road. A few others stopped but many sailed by as this little gem was not sign posted and remains unnamed except by us. The Red Falls seemed the most obvious name. At various other places we stopped to catch views of richly coloured valleys and waterfalls that we had spied from the air on our flight over the island. While an attractive drive, it could not compare with the dramatic vistas of the flight.
Our flight from Kaua’i to Honolulu was uneventful and we were pleased to be back flying with Qantas from Honolulu. There was quite a wait at the airport but we were able to have a walk and then watch our plane, the City of Bendigo, being loaded from air conditioned enclosed lounge areas which made a nice change from the open aired sections of the airport we had experienced on our flight into the US and Canada in May. Roslyn noted the improved state of dress of many of the passengers, which made us realise that Australians seem to be better dressed than many of the Americans we had seen. Clothing appears much cheaper in the US than at home but the quality is poorer.
What a delight to fly with Qantas! There was a well paced routine of food, service, movies etc that made 12 hours on this flight a pleasant dream compared to our nightmare journey on Air Canada in May. It certainly confirmed Roslyn’s desire only to make short day flights on any future overseas trip when at all possible. Let’s hope Qantas can improve its recent safety record!
We landed late afternoon and went first to the inbound duty free to purchase last minute gifts. We passed through immigration quickly but then had to wait as our luggage seemed to be the last to be unloaded (for a few minutes we feared a bag might have been lost). The only questions customs raised (from they x-ray scan) were about a collapsible umbrella and the cleanliness of our hiking boots. Soon we were on our way home to a clean and tidy home thanks to the cleaner our son had employed and the first meal this now more independent son had ever cooked for us. Naturally, it took a few days to settle down and sleep well in our bed but soon we began to wonder whether we had actually travelled for our 4-month trip that was so long in the planning. Now we have 18,000 photos to sort and cull – our reminder that we indeed did have a wonderful trip of a lifetime and that the national parks of western USA and Canada are spectacular, really beyond words.
Paradise, The Garden Island and Kaua’i are reportedly synonymous but there is always a serpent or two in Paradise. The serpents in Kaua’i are in fact roosters! Wild chickens frequent most of the island and are designated pests that must not be feed but no one seems to have any eradication plans either. Our home on Kaua’I, Plantation Hale, had at least 4 of these monsters to wake us at 5.45am everyday. We spied them from the foreshore beaches to the lookouts up the mountain roads.
David expected lush greenery since the island hosts the wettest spot on earth, the high altitude is swamped with over 450 inches of rain a year and indeed it rained almost everyday. It was spitting when we arrived and we drove though a heavy downpour as we neared the airport on our departure. In fact, it rained spasmodically most days but you expect that in the tropics. However, it isn’t all green. Flat areas around the airport have a parched, drought-affected look, the overgrown areas along side the road have an untidy look of a garden in need of some tender loving care including more water and there are bare soil patches of a deep red that rival the Red Centre of Australia.
Neither are gardens particularly prominent outside the resorts. The gardens at our hotel consisted mainly of umbrella trees underplanted with simple 7 petal magnolia bushes pruned to hedges and the prime occupation of the gardeners seem to be tidiness rather than creating colour or mass plantings.
Then our suite was not flash but met our requirements. There were 4 rooms in the suite, which was most fortunate as I was ill for most of our stay with another bout of infected sinuses and bronchitis. Having a comfy sofa allowed me to sit up 24/7 for most of 4 days leaving David to get some sleep at night in the bedroom. Having a kitchen was a boon as we could prepare simple meals saving me the ordeal of trying to get off the sofa and eat out so we lived on simple salads and pan fried meats during our stay. We were not directly on the beach but had a short walk to the beach across a grassed paddock.
The second afternoon, we walked the beach but despite this being “Paradise” surrounded by narrow sandy beaches of coarse yellow sand, you can’t swim at most of it. The beach at our hotel was too steep or rocky to walk on and the rocks extend into the water. No wonder the maps label the beaches as kayaking, snorkelling and surfing, not swimming. Those plastic shoes, Crocs, are the local footwear along with things as they allow people to walk out into the water without hurting their feet. Of the three beaches stated as suitable for swimming, two are merely lagoons suitable for children and wading, not swimming. Here the water seemed not to get above an adult’s hips.
And they have traffic jams in Kaua’i. A section of the main road to the north of the airport is designated “contra flow” which means that in the mornings two of the three lanes are for south bound traffic and the rest of the time the two lanes are for northbound traffic. Otherwise, the roads are too chocked in peak hour. On one occasion, we found the traffic banked up and at a standstill just outside out hotel. We spent most of our last day driving the southern side of the island, usually in a convoy of several vehicles.
This island requires not only a car, but a fly over as well to appreciate its dramatic beauty. The populated areas form 4 distinct zones to the south, east and north. In the south west is the working people’s area with sugar cane and coffee plantations and not particularly attractive towns but just a little to the east of it and you are in the main, more exclusive resort area of Piopu. Here you have the Hyatt and the Sheraton and the supposedly great Poipu Beach where wading is all the go! This is one of the few beaches with lifeguards on duty but there are no flags to swim between. Instead a sign is nailed to the back of a timber shed, presumably the “club house”, telling you to speak to a lifeguard before entering the water! Imagine the thousands of swimmers on Bondi all having to front up to the lifesavers and ask whether it was safe to go in a wading pool!
North of Piopu is the main town of Lihue where the airport is situated on the widest stretch of flat, uninteresting land. Here we not only arrived and “deplaned”, (yes, that is the word) but we also started our light plane trip from here on the Monday morning (day 3 on the island). (See later for the drama of that day!)
We stayed on the Coconut Coast about 20 minutes drive north of the airport because it was more central and less expensive than Piopu. Just up the road are lots of shops including three supermarkets, a drug store and a medical clinic, all of which were put to good use. Almost next door was the Coconut Marketplace where ads informed us was one of the best places for all things Hawaiian. Like our hotel, this marketplace consisted of several plantation style buildings. This architectural style is timber and one or two stores with curved, timber shake roofs. Initially, there were small garden beds with ornaments as well as small, one roomed bure-style shops in the centre of this open-air shopping complex surrounded by more contiguous shops but as you walked further south into the complex the neglect became more evident. Ponds were dry, dirty and in need of fresh paint and gardens neglected. Later we were to see a more modern and attractive US-style mall between Poipu and Lihue but it appeared to lack any island flavour. Still, despite its tatty appearance, we did find a shop or two at the Coconut Marketplace that offered us some attractive items. David found a good quality Aloha shirt (Hawaiian) in more subdued tones than most and at 20% off. He had looked at them in Waikiki but refused to pay the asking price of about $80. Most clothing items are in rayon, totally unsuitable for humid climates like Hawaii or Sydney with only a few in silk or cotton. We both found a pair of Croc thongs in the new slimline style that look dressier than the flat thongs we have seen at home but, I suspect, we’ll find them on the market at home when we look. Lastly, I found some nice tropical Christmas dress decorations I liked a lot. These formed our souvenirs of Kaua’i.
Then, on the north of the island is another more exclusive area with Hanalei Bay the favoured swimming spot and Princeville, the town of exclusive homes set around golf courses. David drove there on the second last day of our stay, as I was too ill to get off the sofa. Here there are attractive beaches, caves and the island’s lighthouse that all make attractive photographs. This is the greener side of the island with lush and often colourful vegetation. However, a lot of effort is needed if this place is to retain the title of the Garden Island. After Princeville the road crosses many single lane bridges before terminating at the Haena State Park. If David’s inability to find a parking spot was anything to go by then this is obviously a popular picnic spot with locals.
Other than this belt of flat coastal land running form the southwest to the north, the island is a stunning collection of peaked black, red and vivid green mountains plunging into the plain or the sea. Steep valleys run from the central mountains to the coast through deep V valleys scored by fast flowing water and ribbon waterfalls plummet from steep canyon walls into the valleys. This is best seen from the air. So on the Monday morning, we went up in a 4 seater, single engine plane. I was not looking forward to it, having no desire to die in a light plane crash. However, I really enjoyed the rich panorama below and found it much preferable to the helicopter ride we had taken at Mt Cook in NZ about 10 years ago. David, on the other hand, who was really quite relaxed about the whole flight was air sick about 10 minutes before we “deplaned”. The poor pilot handled the situation calmly and there wasn’t much I could do from the seat behind David. Still we saw some of the famous sites of Kaua’I – movie sets where Mitzi Gaynor washed that man right out of her hair and the beach used for Bali Hi. Then there was the cave into which James Bond flew his plane.
On our final full day on the island we drove to the south-west then travelled up to the Waimea Canyon along the Waimea Canyon Drive. A stunning short waterfall carved into red rock caused us to stop and edge our car off to the side of the narrow road. A few others stopped but many sailed by as this little gem was not sign posted and remains unnamed except by us. The Red Falls seemed the most obvious name. At various other places we stopped to catch views of richly coloured valleys and waterfalls that we had spied from the air on our flight over the island. While an attractive drive, it could not compare with the dramatic vistas of the flight.
Our flight from Kaua’i to Honolulu was uneventful and we were pleased to be back flying with Qantas from Honolulu. There was quite a wait at the airport but we were able to have a walk and then watch our plane, the City of Bendigo, being loaded from air conditioned enclosed lounge areas which made a nice change from the open aired sections of the airport we had experienced on our flight into the US and Canada in May. Roslyn noted the improved state of dress of many of the passengers, which made us realise that Australians seem to be better dressed than many of the Americans we had seen. Clothing appears much cheaper in the US than at home but the quality is poorer.
What a delight to fly with Qantas! There was a well paced routine of food, service, movies etc that made 12 hours on this flight a pleasant dream compared to our nightmare journey on Air Canada in May. It certainly confirmed Roslyn’s desire only to make short day flights on any future overseas trip when at all possible. Let’s hope Qantas can improve its recent safety record!
We landed late afternoon and went first to the inbound duty free to purchase last minute gifts. We passed through immigration quickly but then had to wait as our luggage seemed to be the last to be unloaded (for a few minutes we feared a bag might have been lost). The only questions customs raised (from they x-ray scan) were about a collapsible umbrella and the cleanliness of our hiking boots. Soon we were on our way home to a clean and tidy home thanks to the cleaner our son had employed and the first meal this now more independent son had ever cooked for us. Naturally, it took a few days to settle down and sleep well in our bed but soon we began to wonder whether we had actually travelled for our 4-month trip that was so long in the planning. Now we have 18,000 photos to sort and cull – our reminder that we indeed did have a wonderful trip of a lifetime and that the national parks of western USA and Canada are spectacular, really beyond words.
