Kauai, Hawaii December 2004/January 2005

Friday Dec 31: It rained all night and we were tired from the long hike yesterday so we slept in a bit. I took a long hot shower and John took a bath. I did some laundry and wrote postcards. By about 11 AM the rain had slowed so we headed out to see what we could find to do in the rain. We went to see Opaeka'a Falls (below left) and the Wailua Valley. Then drove down to see Wailua Falls ( below center). Both falls were much more full than the pictures you usually see - particularly Wailua Falls (of Fantasy Island fame) which is usually seen as two distinct falls. Today it was one huge, gushing one. But they were also yellow from all the mud being washed down by the rains. We had lunch in Kapa'a at Mema Cuisine (a Thai/Chinese restaurant). It was very good but they didn't have a lunch menu so it was also rather pricey. We then made our way to Bounty Music where John got his big souvenir - a nice ukelele (left). We made a stop at Snorkel Bob's and got some information that we hope we can use next week if the weather clears up! The traffic in Kapa'a was incredible. I'm not sure if it was because it was Friday, or New Year's Eve, or raining, but it was backed up all through town. We paused at Kealia Beach to watch the surfers for a while. In spite of the weather, they were out there waiting for just the right wave!

              

After we finally got back and cleaned up, the rain paused for a few moments in the evening so we dashed out to walk along Anahola Beach for a bit. It is customary on Kauai to shoot fireworks on New Year's Eve and we saw them starting along the shore. The beach was empty and it was a nice walk. We had decided not to brave the crowds, especially with the storms and floods predicted. So we stayed in, had frozen pizza for supper, played gin rummy and listened to the storm.

Saturday January 1: It was still raining when we woke up and kept on through most of the morning. We were glad to be on the second floor since the lower level had 6" of flood water in it! Our little road had turned into a rushing stream and we were advised to move our rented car to higher ground because of the potential that the actual Anahola Stream would keep on rising. As it began to taper off, the chickens came out from under trees and resumed foraging in the next door field - and they were joined by egrets!

     

By the time we had lunch, it had mostly stopped raining and the water had drained enough for us to believe we could probably drive at least on most of the highway, so we ventured out to inspect the damage and see if we could get to Koloa where we were moving tomorrow. Even though it was New Year's Day, the highway crew was out scooping mud off of the road in places. We headed south and stopped at Lydgate State Park (left). It was pretty dismal. There were some other folks there doing the same thing we were but the water was a muddy mess, the beach was covered with debris - in some cases, whole trees and shrubs. Skipping ahead of the story here, check out the picture on the right. This was the next afternoon - we stopped again on our way south to see how much cleanup had been done and discovered the creativity of kids! Though the protected lagoon areas were still full of branches, trash and mud and not open to swimming, the main beach was back to having blue water and the kids were busy building wonderful structures with all the driftwood! This youngster was putting his mother in "jail" while she read peacefully lying on the sand. What an incredible difference in 24 hours.

Okay - back to Saturday. We continued on down to the Poipu area. It was still overcast and raining off and on, several parking lots were under water, but the beaches didn't seem to be in bad shape and in fact, there were a few brave folks out in the water and lots of small children at the playground with parents relieved to get them out of hotel rooms. We drove down to Spouting Horn (below) since we were so close. (Notice the brown in the water - muddy storm runoff.) On the way back to our apartment, we stopped in Lihue at the KMart and Borders to get some local Hawaiian CD's by "Brother Iz" - Israel Kamakawiwo'ole. His music had been recommended by a friend before we left and in our apartment we found one of his CD's that we both fell in love with. So we brought home a bit of Hawaii to provide the right mood to remember vacation!

      

We got back to the apartment about 5, John took a farewell walk on Anahola Beach while I changed clothes and called Katie and Dave to make sure they had gotten back from their Utah trip and to update the directions to the cottage. We had supper in Kapa'a at the Sukhothai - another Chinese/Thai restaurant. Very good and not so expensive as some of the others. We stopped at the Safeway, since it was close, to stock up on groceries, then went back and started packing to move on the next morning.

Sunday Jan 2: Hawaiian churches decorated for Christmas look much like Iowa churches do - except for the sliding doors on all sides that were left open and made it feel much like an "open air" church! This is the Kapa'a First Hawaiian Church and we had a beautiful experience there. First off, they greet visitors with leis (made from shells rather than flowers so you can keep them). The service was an interesting combination of English and Hawaiian. All the music was in Hawaiian (though there was an English hymn book in the pews, too), the readings were a combination of the languages - some had the leader speak in Hawaiian and we responded with the same thing in English; some were read in Hawaiian but with English translations in the bulletin. Fortunately for us, the sermon was in English. We enjoyed it, the people were very welcoming and it was a good way to start the new year.

From there we stopped at the "Holiday Fair" in Kapa'a which is basically a flea market. John bought some Hawaiian ties and we browsed a bit, then had brunch at Blossoming Lotus, a new "vegan fusion world cuisine" restaurant in Kapa'a. It was very nicely decorated and the food was quite good. Back home, John is embarking on a series of experiments to figure out how they made their buckwheat pancakes so light. We'll see if he gets desperate enough to buy their cook book! Then we drove on down to Lydgate State Park which, as noted above, looked like a totally different place than it had the day before. Since we had already checked out of our apartment in Anahola, we used the beach house at Lydgate to change into hiking clothes, and then continued south and west to Waimea Canyon (right). A totally different piece of Kauai. Just driving up 8 miles into the canyon to the Kukui Trailhead is spectacular. There were pullouts all along the steep, windy road, that each had a wonderful view. Kukui Trail itself was suffering the effects of the storms; it was muddy, slippery, steep with lots of exposed (read: easy to trip on) roots so we actually only hiked just over half a mile down and then back. Stopping to gawk at the splendor of it and take pictures, the mile took us an hour. They like to say Waimea Canyon is "the grand canyon of the Pacific" and I would definitely agree! Every time I looked a different direction, I wanted another picture. It was so hard to pick just a few to share!

     

See what I mean? Just Wow. It did indeed remind me a lot of the southwest except the surrounding vegetation is jungle rather than desert! The white spots in the picture above, left are all waterfalls.

From there we slowly made our way back down the canyon road and to Koloa Landing Cottages where we were staying for the coming week. Again, nobody was there when we arrived but there was a note and Tiki Cottage was ready for us. We settled in, had some snacks and waited for Katie, Dave and Gail to arrive around 7:15 PM before going to dinner. We ate at Casa di Amici, near Poipu Beach - an upscale, rather eclectic, restaurant with an Italian flavor and an emphasis on seafood (they are very busy and reservations were needed). Not only nice surroundings but very good food, too. They were exhausted from their long day of travel and we were rather worn out from climbing steep trails so I think we all slept well that night!