One Year Ago - Part 7

We got up early and flew to Kauai on this day. It was a short flight. This island is the least populated of the four main islands and is called "The Garden Isle". We were on this island for two days. The second day was a free day and we spent most of it at the beach. The picture above is of Mt. Wai'ale'ale, one of the wettest places on earth with over 400 inches of rain a year. It is usually cloud covered as it is above. The next three pictures are of Waimea Canyon, often called "The Grand Canyon of the Pacific". It was hard to believe that we were standing on an island in the Pacific and viewing this scenery. The road to get there had so many curves, twists and turns, we thought we were on an amusement park ride.

Kauai coffee plants, Hawaii grows some of the finest coffee in the world.

The Spouting Horn, as the waves would come in, the water would go under the rocks and come up through a hole in the rocks.

Our group at the Kiahuna Golf Club, enjoying lunch at Joe's on the Green.

Opaekaa Falls.

The Fern Grotto Wailua River Cruise. The boats were flat bottomed and seated approx. 50to 60 people on long benches. It was a 90 min. narrated cruise, and there was live entertainment on board, second and third generation tour guides that were Hawaiians and sang Hawaiian songs. On the way back we got to request songs and we had to sing and dance the Hukilau song, great fun while we were on the move, no one fell overboard and the boat didn't sway although we were doing our fair share!

This river is the only navigable river in Hawaii. The Grotto is a fern-festooned cave with a small waterfall flowing over the top. Not much water was flowing while we were there because they had not had rain in almost two weeks and it usually rains every day. We were not allowed into the cave (it's been closed for a few years due to liability issues), but we stood on the platform while they sang the Hawaiian wedding song. When they were done, you were "married" to whoever was standing next to you. When they announced that, everyone moved around to make sure they were standing beside the correct person. I happened to be standing by one of the older guys in our group (he picked on us all the time and we had great fun together), and we looked at each other and cracked up laughing and he said he'd better find his wife.

Some of the beautiful flowers along the path to the Grotto.

The Fern Grotto. The ferns are not as long as they used to be years ago due to the hurricane in the early 90's. The hole at the bottom is the entrance to the cave.

A close up of the ferns.

The entrance to our hotel, The Aloha Beach Resort which was right on the beach. All of their hotels are open like this, no entrance doors at all. That is a very different concept compared to the mainland's way of doing it. This was a very low keyed place and the setting was beautiful, of course!