Month: March 2022

Rust on the bumper, a bar for surfboards, a graphic of a paddle, and a bumper sticker that says “I’d rather be at Polihale.”

Polihale would be Polihale State Park, the most Western publicly accessible beach in Hawai’i.

We took advice from one of our guidebooks that said to drive to the end of Waimea Canyon Road and work your way back down. In doing that, we drove to Pu-u O Kila Lookout and did a hike to Pihea Overlook.

Here’s the view from the lookout. We were very lucky in that it was sunny through most of our hike. This area is known for constant clouds rainfall.

From the start of the trail. The beginning part has views on both sides. You can tumble either way.

Matt explores the view from the edge.

It was fun walking along the ridge.

I also enjoyed this very unique (to me at least) moss.

The part of the trail to Pihea Overlook involved a lot of moving ourselves upward. Another plus of it being dry and sunny is that there was much less sliding in the mud.

This was the hike where we observed people in the parking lot and thought they had probably slipped and fallen, but discovered that just getting ourselves through the trail muddied our legs as if we had fallen. I did fall once, but the mud on my legs came from hauling myself up that narrow trail. And I was very glad I brought my hiking poles.

Here are a few wisps of clouds.

And here we are at the vista.

Matt takes steps to make sure he won’t fall.

Clouds moving in.

Some of the trademark Kauai mud on my hands. Plus, my hiking poles.

While writing this post, I enjoyed reading this post about the same hike. Thanks, The Hiking HI

A sunrise view from our kitchen window.

And from our back porch. That’s the ocean in the distance.

Had we not gone on the tour, we might have missed the tortoises. Thankfully our tour guide clued us in that the tortoises are used to clear land so native plants can survive. They take the place of a bird that became extinct. And we got to see them!

There were about 20 of them and each one had its own pen. They were very pretty.

I loved the plating on their legs.

We walked past many of the pens.

There was also this beauty.

And we saw two different kinds of lizards. This one had a red throat.

And this blurry picture shows how well this one blended into its surroundings.

Our route to the cave reserve took us through the Tree Tunnel, which was a grand gateway, as cited by this website.

We had a short walk from where we parked to the view of the ocean.

And then we took an interpretive hike to get to the Makauwahi Cave. There were many informative signs about the flora.

Our first sighting of Makauwahi Cave came from above. As you can see, it ‘s not as much of a cave as it once was.

We had to crawl through a tunnel (for about four feet) to get on the inside.

Once in, we wandered right into a tour that was just starting and learned that the cave roof collapsed 7000 years ago and formed a lake. From the fossil record in what was the lake comes information about what species were on the island prior to contact.

There’s a bit of cave left and we got to see the patterns the limestone made.

There were also a lot of great spiders hanging out on the native plants, including this one who was going to eat well soon.

After checking in at Waimea Plantation Cottages and getting settled, Matt and I went for a walk. We found this tree conglomeration.

And then walked along the beach to this pier.

We walked back through town and found a good place to watch the sun setting over Ni’ihau.

All in all, a very good first day!

Having eaten, we still had time to kill before we could check in, so we found a cemetery nearby and drove out for a look.

I love cemeteries in general and my last trip to a Hawaiian cemetery on Lanai had many interesting things to take in. This was was no different.

Flowers and garlands.

Tidy and not-tidy gravestones

And excellent offerings.

There was also this cacti. I wouldn’t wish the vandalism, but it’s interesting how it scars.

We won the airplane seat lottery and had an empty middle seat all the way to Kauai. I recently heard this described as “poor man’s first class” and a truer phrase has never been spoken. When we left Portland, it was in the 30s and I got cold and was cold for the whole flight, hence my jacket blanket.

Once we arrived in Hawaii, we got to bypass the long line because we had bracelets (a thing we almost didn’t have because I never saw any notification, nor discovered any information about bracelets in my pre-trip research) and I was starving. So we found a place and I ordered a Loco Moco, which was a hamburger patty, on top of rice and topped with a fried egg and a lot of gravy.

Given that it was my only meal of the day, it hit the spot. Matt got fried shrimp.