Good morning everyone, and good morning Kauai!
Wow it's a really nice morning with the sunlight through my huge window. I am just madly in love with the birdsongs outside. This scene reminds me of the unforgetable first morning that I got up in the US after a very long flight from Saigon, Vietnam..... And yes, I've settled down in USA since then.
I did not sleep much last night because of the new place, but I think I have enough energy and excitement to discover Kauai. As planed, we go to the information desk at the hotel lobby after 9:00am. The staff is so nice and very knowledgeable. she gives us maps and go through with us all the activities we can join and the points of interest we might want to visit. It is alot of very helpful information, but I'm not sure we remember everything she said. Well, they will be here everyday except weekends, so we now focus only on the places for the first day.
Actually, our plan is to start by discovering the south and the north, and then spend the rest of the trip around the center (the east side) that's close to the hotel. Today we just want to go see the Wailua Falls near the hotel and then will continue driving to the south. Hm... we have maps, we have all the information needed for the day....so what are we waiting for?...Let's go!
There's some light showers when we start, but they quickly stop. While driving on a wet narrow roads with trees on both sides, it reminds me so much of my hometown in Vietnam. This scenery with the incredible green of nature gave me a very peaceful and relaxing feeling.
When we get to the water falls, the water's not as clear as what we saw on the internet. well, maybe it's not the right time of the year. Although we could only watch the water falling down from behind the guardrail, it's still a nice one.
There are also chickens freely walking everywhere. Again, childhood flashbacks. I remember when I was a little kid living with my grandparents in a small hometown. We grew all kinds of vegetables and fruits, we raised pigs to sell, chickens for eggs and some for meat... And just like in Hawaii, during the day our chickens walked everywhere looking for food. But they came back when we fed them twice a day or when they needed to go to sleep. I really like how the chickens in Hawaii belong to no one... except the jungle.
We continue with the road after the falls to see what else's there before turning back to go south. After grabbing some lunch, we go looking for the famous Poipu Beach. We get lost and end up in some wild area, so we take a few pictures to mark the place we accidentally step on :)
Going back and looking for Poipu Beach again, we stop at a couple of nice beaches on the way. One of them was Lawai Beach that has a lot of people swimming. We continue looking for Poipu Beach, which is fronted by Poipu Beach Park, and a few resorts. It's a series of golden sand crescents, strung together. According to the infomation we had, Poipu Beach is the most popular beach on the South Shore and ranked top among the 10 "best" beaches selected nationwide. It's a very nice place for all water activities (swimming, surfing, snorkeling....) for beach lovers. You can find seals, turtles laying on sands and of course a lot of wild chickens... Too bad that we can not find it even though we are in the area. There are so many nice beaches everywhere so it's not really a pitty... but next time we come back to Kauai, we will definately go looking for it again!
While looking for Poipu Beach, we end up finding McBryde, the national tropical botanical garden that I wanted to go. By the time we get here, it's already closed (around 2:00pm). So we go to the office that's still open to get some information, and walk around to see many beautiful tropical plants and flowers they have in the gardens next to the office... We will come back later for a real tour of the main gardens that are much bigger than this.
On the way back to the hotel, we keep seeing rainbows. It's been so long since I see such beautiful rainbows. We also stop by a few more beaches with some wonderful views, Hm.... It's so easy when you travel with your own car, isn't it?
We're heading west on the south side, and on the way we see a few people standing in a look-out looking at the valley. It doesn't look like there's anything special, but we still make quick decision to stop. Hm.... standing like everyone else staring at the same spot...LOL....there's really nothing to see.... Oh wait a second, a rainbow is starting to appear.. Wow, it's beautiful! now I understand why people stopped.... and why it's a good idea for us to stop... :)
We drive as far west as we have time for today, but before heading back we want to end our first day of discovery by stopping at a nice beach on the way to see the sunset. Eventually we decide to stop at Kekaha Beach park. Wow, more than what we expected. The atmosphere's so quite, peaceful and relaxing. We're having a great time walking barefoot along the beach, watching the waves, and enjoying every moment of the sunset....
It's time to leave the beach.... There's not a lot of night life here so we just want to stop somewhere for dinner before heading back to hotel. The food here is pretty much the same as anywhere else in the US.
What a long day. We enjoy our first day alot. After showering and resting for a while, we put on flip-flops and walk to the lobby to pick up a couple of free DVDs to watch later in the room. Also, we stop by the travel information desk again to look at some brochures (no one works here this late, but you are free to take any of the brochures). In the mean time, sitting in the open lobby, we really enjoyed the nice breeze, smell the scent of nature at night in this tropical weather, listening to the soft whisper of branches and the sound of the waves from the nearby beach
It's time to rest and fill up the energy reserves for tomorrow.
Sweet dreams everyone!