Kauai Day 3

We stayed on Utah time the whole trip so every night we went to bed as soon as it got dark and woke up around 5 or 6:00. That morning we ate breakfast in our hotel room with the leftover food we had bought from the market the day before - dry cereal and some fruit juice.

We drove to the Hyatt parking lot and walked up to Shipwreck Rock and then hiked along the cliffs and beaches.

 We saw very few bugs/insects/critters the whole time we were there but did find this giant snail on our walk:

 Part of the trail was destroyed by a landslide from the cliffs so you have to walk through the golf course. It was so beautiful, but no one was playing golf! I couldn't believe it.

 We got to a sandy beach next to a little secluded house and walked through the most amazing sand I've ever felt.

 All the beaches we hiked through were empty! We saw one or two people walking, and one Hawaiian guy fishing with a net in the shallow water.

We made it all the way to the Maha'ulepu Beaches.

The trail keeps going through more cliffs and I would have liked to explore farther, but we'd already hiked much longer than planned with no sunscreen so we turned around.

I loved this view on the way back:

We ended up hiking around 5 miles. Even though it was only 10 or so in the morning, we were so hungry by the time we got to the car that we decided we needed lunch. We ate at Puka Dogs and I have to say, in terms of hot dogs, it was pretty good.

We had to check out of our room that morning since we were going to our airbnb place that night. We loaded up the car but decided to stick around the hotel beach for the rest of the morning. Dan had read about a free diving spot off the beach called the Sheraton Caverns and was set on finding them. I wanted to try snorkeling as well so we both got our stuff, but as soon as I got in the water and started getting pushed around by wave, I had second thoughts.  Actually, I kind of freaked out and refused to get in. I'm not comfortable in any water, and especially not the ocean.

I opted to sit on the lounge chairs on the beach and read while Dan tried twice, unsuccessfully, to find the caverns. I had bought him a dive watch for Christmas and I was glad he had it so we could set a time to meet up and he could be aware of how long he'd been in the water. After attempt number two he decided to give up for the day, but he did see turtles, Angel fish, lots of little reef fish, a 5 foot long trumpet fish, an eel, some fish that looked like a lizard, and he heard humpback whale calls through the water.

After all the swimming Dan was hungry again, so it was time for our second lunch. (We did this most days - we were waking up so early and doing so much that we were hungry all the time!) We went back to Da Crack for a burrito for Dan and I grabbed an acai bowl from the market next door:

It was time to drive east and north to the little house we had rented in Kapa'a. On the way was one of the waterfalls I wanted to see, Wailua Falls, so we took a quick detour to the lookout.

It was pretty, but I think the water flow was slightly lower than normal. I especially loved this tree though. They were all over the island and so gorgeous:

We weren't feeling adventurous enough to hop the fence and hike down to the pool so we just looked for a few minutes and called it good.

We drove to Kapa'a and found the property. We were a little skeptical at first because the gate to the house was literally on the highway. Through the gate was the main house with one small bungalow on each side. Michael, our host, greeted us and showed us around. He told us how he'd designed both bungalows and they were just built in December. We were totally impressed with the whole thing, it was a perfect little micro-home. It was more luxurious than the Sheraton and, despite being right off the main road, very secluded. We actually wish we would have skipped the Sheraton and stayed there the whole trip!

One of the things that made me pick that rental property was the canal right in their backyard and that they had paddle boards for us to use.

Our host mentioned that evening was a great time to be out on the river, so we opted to go right then. And it was so peaceful and beautiful! There was no one else around and we had birds singing and fish jumping and the sun setting behind the mountains.

We drove up the road to have dinner at Chicken in a Barrel for some seriously good smoked chicken. We wanted dessert so we found another local ice cream place, Tropical Dreams Ice Cream, but chose the wrong flavor and it was only average. We stopped at the grocery store next door and grabbed some things for breakfast in the morning since we had a kitchenette now.