We spent 8 days in Hawaii: two full days in Honolulu, one day in transit to Kauai, and five full days in Kauai. In Honolulu we stayed at Hotel La Croix, a cheapish hotel (by Hawaii standards) in Waikiki, and in Kauai we stayed at a vacation rental, the Kapaa Garden Apartments.
Here are some pictures:
A typical view of the Ala Wai Canal, forming the northern boundary of Waikiki. I ran along the canal every morning.
A sea dragon at the Waikiki Aquarium:
Two plates from our dinner at Margotto, a truffle-focused restaurant in Honolulu... Didn't take photos of anything else there!
Kona Coffee Purveyors in Honolulu has the best pastries! And it's a great outpost for kona coffee in O'ahu.
Aboard the flight to Kauai. It was a 45-minute flight from gate to gate! About 25 mins in the air.
Kauai is known as the Garden Isle, and it's the most beautiful of the Hawaiian islands we've been to so far (O'ahu, Hawai'i and Kaua'i). Hibiscus flowers like this everywhere...
Photos from our first of many hikes, with many waterfalls. This was the hike to Ho'opi'i Falls, where they filmed one of the opening scenes in the original Jurassic Park movie (the "amber mine").
Our vacation rental gave access to bikes, and there was a nice 5ish-mile paved trail that ran along the beach, starting about a block from our place.
Visited the westernmost bookstore in the United States in Hanapepe, Kauai.
I made a habit of photographing all the orchids... This was a big dendrobium at McBryde Gardens:
Sea turtles basking at Po'ipu Beach. Apparently they come almost every day. (We went back another day and they weren't out basking, though we did see some surfing in the waves near the beach.)
A view of Wai'ale'ale, the highest peak on Kauai and usually the wettest place on earth! It gets over 400 inches of rain a year, and it's rare to be able to see the peak. So this was a special day. The peak is around 5,200 feet, and here we're viewing it from about 1,200 feet up (and many miles away) at the summit of Kauka'opua, at the end of Okolehao Trail.
Some more orchids also seen on that trail:
We went kayaking in a duo kayak twice. Took some getting used to but it was fun!
Turtle spotting:
Nene (Hawaiian goose) spotting:
More hiking... This was on a guided tour to a place called Secret Falls, a 120-foot waterfall that we got to swim in for a while.
A funny thing about Kauai is there are chickens everywhere, apparently several hundred thousand. You see them on every mountaintop and at every beach, and the roosters are always crowing.
Ruins of an ancient Hawaiian temple (probably ~500 years old):
I also learned Hawaii has its own Grand Canyon! This is the Waimea Canyon. There's a road running along it for about 13 miles, with lots of places to stop and view the canyon and of course hiking opportunities. We didn't have much time, but we took a 20-minute hike.
We took a catamaran tour up to the Napali Coast, famous among other things as the setting for Isla Nublar in Jurassic Park. We went into a few sea caves as well. Five hours on the boat was a little long (I was getting queasy starting about halfway through), but we stopped to snorkel for a while in some calm waters.
These peaks are about 4,000 feet high:
If you squint you can see some tiny people on the beach here:
Last orchid of the trip... this was vanilla! At the Lydgate Chocolate Farms.
Our last meal... our favorite thing: poke, marinated raw fish over rice. This is from Konohiki Seafoods, the best poke on Kauai. And the pie is from The Right Slice. Enjoyed on the beach, with roosters!
