One Beautiful Island, Part 3
One of the problems with blogging about something that happened in the past is that you tend to lose of the detail. I’ll try to remember the important things as I go. Fortunately, two of the last four of our days were relatively low key.
MONDAY:
We went on the Kilohana Plantation Hike. This is the same plantation that we went to the day before for breakfast and shopping. The hikes starts with a train ride, the same train ride that the people who only want the train ride go on, then we get off to hike, have lunch, and pick fruit in the orchard and then get picked up by the train back to the plantation.
Our group consisted of mostly people older and less fit than us, except for one who was most likely younger than Matt. She had a “personality” disorder. At first, I found her annoying, but then as I realized that she wasn’t just weird, but wired differently, I warmed up to her. What can I say, it was morning, I wasn’t fully functional myself and had late realization.
So we board the train. The first stop, the one that started the hike was fun. We got to feed the wild pigs and the goats. Of course, the goats being goats tried to hog all the food. There were itty bitty baby pigs there. The smallest ran into the grass though, and we didn’t get a picture of them. Matt took pictures and I did the feeding. During the hike, the learned that there are 350,000 wild pigs on the island, compared to the 65,000 human residents. And that is why there are no more peacocks on the hike.
The hike was long, but slow. And interesting. We saw a lot of different flowers and learned about the parasitic banyon tree. We saw a 100 year old mango tree. It had long since stopped producing fruit, and a banyon took over, but for a mango tree to still be standing after 100 years is really something.
After the hike, we had an okay lunch. I had a salad and chips. The salad had the little purple flowers that supposedly tasted like mushrooms on it, but I didn’t taste that with all the other veggies mixed in. Then we headed for the orchard. On our way, a horse came over to talk to us. I thought about my niece Maddie right then and how happy she would have been over the horse coming over to her.
The orchards …. ahh… the guide cut up a delicious pineapple for us to share. Never had a better tasting pineapple ever! I tried some new fruits … lychee (pronounced LEE-chee), and I can’t describe it except that its juicy and sweet. Oh so yummy. I had a longanberry … several of them, they look similar to the lychee, taste like a canteloupe. And a star fruit, which I have seen here in grocery stores and never bought, cause I didn’t know what to do with it. Turns out, you slice it like you would slice a cucumber or zucchini into rounds. Its flavor is reminiscient of a kiwi.
The highlight of this excursion was Hobo Gray, a friendly cat who hangs out by the train station. The train driver told us that she was abandoned there six months ago and they have been taking care of her. She was limping, and he promised that if she wasn’t feeling better the next day, she would go to the vet. He seemed very concerned about her. Hobo let us pet her. We were there before anyone else, so we got to her before it all got to be too much for her. That was our only cat fix of the whole trip. All the other cats seem to be true ferals and run from us.
After the hike, we went to the beach. It was hard to believe that our trip was almost over and we wanted as much beach time as we could get!
TUESDAY:
We didn’t do very much on Tuesday. A lot of reading and hanging out at the condo, outside. The event we had planned was water tubing. This was run by the same company that we went ziplining with on Friday. So it was the same deal, get there, get gear, take a long truck drive, tube, eat, go back. The actual tubing was okay. I think it was definitely geared to families, as it was mellow. I would have liked some waterfalls or bigger dips or something (nothing that would cause us to fall out of our tubes though), just a bit of a thrill. It was relatively relaxing, or as much as it can be in an organized group. The stream was 2.5 miles long, which sounds short, and it was. The lazy river at Sandcastle (for those who know it) … that is about what this was, plus tunnels and a guide or two. I would have liked a bit more Raging Rapids (at Kennywood) for the experience. I thought the lunch was better than the zipline one, but the people who worked this event were not as friendly or nice as the zipliners.
WEDNESDAY:
Was essentially our last full day here in the sense of having the condo. We mostly did nothing in the morning, although I do think that this was the day I was reading on the lanai, and saw a turtle, and then another. I called in to Matt and there were at least six or seven swimming around together. It was cool. Matt ran in to the condo to get the camera and started snapping pictures and actually got several that shows the turtles. That was this year’s theme for the trip, turtles. 
Afternoon on the beach, where the “waves” were the roughest all week, but no critters joined us in our swimming. We stopped at the grocery store to get something for dinner and breakfast the next morning, and packed and read some books.
THURSDAY:
Got up and cleaned up the condo, showered and finished packing. Sigh. I can’t believe 10 days went by so fast. When it got there, it seemed like we had so much time, and then whoosh! it was all over … but we still had some vacationing to do!
We “checked out” of the condo at 10:30 and headed west to Port Allen Airport where we went Powered Hang Gliding. Let me tell you all … this was frightening! I’m quoting Matt here, but its like riding a motorcycle in the air. There is nothing around you. Yes, we are seatbelted in, but that wasn’t good enough.
I admit that I was this close to making him land and stop. But what stopped me? I didn’t want to be only the fourth person to make them do that. According to their website, only 3 in 18,000 people have done that. I am sure that there have been more students since us, but that three still stands.
It wasn’t the turbulence, it was just the being in the air with no outer protection. About half way through though, I started to relax and enjoy it. Matt got the option to steer his plane, I didn’t. I was offered, it was a “lesson” after all, but I was too scared. Matt got to go into the canyon and I stayed over the water, that in itself another story, as I can’t swim. But we were totally safe, because we were 6,000 feet in the air, and at that point, the air holds you in and if the engine failed, we had a long time to glide down and steer to a safe place. But it didn’t feel that way at first!
Would I do it again? Probably. But no time soon. It’s very cost prohibitive.
Then we went to lunch at Joe’s on the Green, and discovered too late that it was good for lunch as well as breakfast. Oh well. We did some souvenir shopping and then …. we had nothing left to do and our flight wasn’t until 10:50.
So we went to the beach and sat in a pavillion and read our books. The couple who had gone hang gliding right before us were there too and they saw us and we talked to them for awhile. Eventually, after the sun started to go down (and I got some awesome sunset pictures), we headed out the direction of the airport. We still had time so we decided to kill some of it at Border’s, then grabbed a quick dinner and headed to the airport at just about the perfect time for that.
In Lihue … well, they never were equipped for security and security is outside … the check in counters are sort of inside …. they are under a canopy, but its still open. Its weird, but you have to go behind security to check in and check your bags. First, checked bags have to be inspected by the USDA for plants and produce. Then you get your boarding pass, get your checked bag tags, take your bags to the TSA bag area and then you get into general security line. Anyway, the set up is a bit confusing. And then when you get to the gate, they check your carry on for contraband. We watched one guy get harrassed over his case of papayas, that I am pretty sure he bought in the airport, cause he was behind me in the main security line.
The trip home was uneventual. Didn’t sleep as much as I would have liked, but got some sleep in. The flight out of Phoenix to Pittsburgh was delayed 45 minutes, but we landed only 15 minutes behind schedule. My best sleep was during that delay. The plane moved, its like a car, and I was out. When I woke up, I was surprised we were still on the ground. I even slept through the pilot announcements.
We are working to get over our jet lag. Saturday, we were not up that late, around 11, but Sunday, I was up at 1:30! Oy! I hope to be back to somewhat normal in a few days. Its hard.
In Summary:
Poipu is a nice place to stay. There are grocery stores and restaurants and Lihue is only 15 miles away. Our condo, while not deluxe accomodations (our room at the Palazzo in Vegas was much nicer for instance), had everything we wanted and you cannot get closer to the water than these. It did not really have a beach, as we thought. Just a small sandy area that was shared with another big resort. We didn’t spend time there because it was so small and lots of people. But the turtle sightings were awesome as was listening to the ocean waves all day and night. The place wasn’t air conditioned and the trade winds didn’t cool the bed and bathrooms like promised. It was actually hot.
We may stay at the North Shore the next time, where we stayed the first time. I don’t think we’ll find a condo or house so close to the ocean however.
Don’t think these beaches are like the ones on the mainland shore. The fact that these are volcanos make the beaches very rocky. If you surf, or body board or body surf, or snorkel, its great. If you just splash in the ocean, its great. But its not like the beaches in North Carolina where you can go out to your neck, still have sand beneath your feet and ride waves inland. If you try that in Kauai, you’ll break your head.
I highly recommend “The Ultimate Kauai Guidebook” by Andrew Doughty. He didn’t steer us wrong at all.
This was, by far, one of the best, if not the best vacation ever.