Kauai

We arrived in Kauai tired and stiff on Thursday night after a round dozen hours of airplanes and airports, having flown Seattle->San Francisco->Oahu->Kauai. We were feeling OK but in desperate need of a bed to stretch out on. We got our car with no trouble and made our way to the youth hostel we had booked for the first night (there was a conflict for that one night at the condo we wanted to stay at) only to find that they didn’t have our reservation. Not to worry, they had the “deluxe suite” left (it had its own bathroom) for an extra $15. Hmm. We ended up not paying that much extra because the manager couldn’t do the math to figure out how much more we owed since we had paid a deposit. The room was pretty much what you’d expect -- a pit -- but clean enough. The best part was that it had hand-drawn faux distressed paint on the baseboards, with little drawings mixed in:


The next morning we puttered around the island doing some grocery shopping, got some lunch, wandered around the grounds of the Hyatt resort, and poked around Koloa, the little town closest to us. When we finally got into the condo it was a huge relief--which we celebrated by doing almost nothing but laying around. The defining characteristic of the condo is its shuttered wall of windows that looks out onto the rocky beach. It’s wonderful to hear such loud, clear surf while sitting here typing this! This is the view out our patio:


On Saturday we headed west to explore Waimea Canyon and the surrounding area a bit. It was mostly a car day, but we found some spectacular views that pictures completely failed to capture. Afterwards, we bounced down many miles of rough dirt road in search of a great, isolated beach that really lived up to the descriptions. It’s something like 17 miles of uninterrupted fine sand. Awesome. That night we came home after dark and grabbed some Mexican food from a whole in the wall nearby (literally—it’s just a window for take-out only, not even a single table). Kerrie’s favorite part was the bunuelos, deep fried flour tortillas sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar.



Alas, Sunday was a wash. I woke up with a migraine. I never did feel great in the day, but was up to keeping our dinner reservation at Roy’s. It was quite good, although not as spectacular as we had been told. Perhaps it was my mood.

Today we got up early and headed out right away to explore the north coast of Kauai. Right. We managed to leave before 11, which I suppose is something. The north coast is the wet side of the island, and often doused in rain showers, but it’s also the most jungle and renowned for its beauty. It was sunny all day and the area lived up to the hype. I got a decent shot of the taro farms from a scenic overlook that I liked mostly for the vivid colors:


But the stop of the day was definitely Queen’s Bath. It’s supposed to be a nice little natural pool that the tide gently fills so it makes for easy-going swimming. Not today. The surf was coming in with force neither of us have ever seen, and pounding away at the whole area. I’m not exaggerating to say that to have gone into the water would have been near instant death. With all the foam we dubbed it Queen’s Washing Machine. Here are a couple shots of the surf pounding skyward. The scale is impossible to appreciate—I have no idea how tall these plumes really were, but most of those rocks nearby were at least half as tall as I am which would make the wave in the first shot around fifty feet high. It was an awesome sight and I filled the remainder of my memory card with shots.