(more and higher resolution photos here)
On Saturday, our last full day in Kauai, we decided to spend our time seeing the sights on the east side of the island. After watching a bit of the sunrise at the cliffs we started our day at the Menehune “fish pond.” I’m not sure if the water is blue in photos because of photoshop or if it was muddy on our day because of rain. In any event, we were not as impressed as we expected to be.
Then we went to Costco (Sam’s addiction).
After that we went to Wailua Falls.
and then Lydgate beach in before heading to Kapa’a for bubba’s burgers for lunch. Bubba’s burgers were delicious, but small and pricey. After lunch we visited Opaekaa Falls.
After that we went back up north to see the Kilauea lighthouse, where we could look far out and see many whales.
I tried to take pictures and video of the whales, but the human eye is much better at zooming than a camera without zoom…
Again, the lady(bug)s love me.
After that we went on the long drive up to Anini beach, where we actually saw closer breaching whales than at the lighthouse. Like before, we tried to record this, but they’re virtually invisible to the camera.
From there we went back to the main road and proceeded down Hanalei road, which is actually the end of Kuhio highway, stopping at a few different beaches.
I think this is Wainiha beach.
And this is Haena Beach.
Across from the beach is the “dry” cave.
Up the road a little further is the “wet cave” – called that because it has a standing pool of water inside and a ton of warnings about the nasty things the water contains.
Across the street is a “swamp” of sorts with some interesting birds, both in their audio and visual stimulation.
Just a few hundred feet away is the parking lot at Ke’e state beach, the end of Kuhio Highway.
One great feature of this park is the Kalalau Trail which probably goes all the way to Kalalau Lookout in Waimea Canyon. We didn’t have time to hike ten miles, we just went a half mile up to the vista point to see both coastlines
That beach down there is the right side of Ke’e.
We hiked back down just in time to watch a brief sunset at the beach.
A lot of the beaches on that side of the island have this really cool green algea growing on the rocks that abut the edge of the tide.
After the sunset we briefly explored the interesting trees on the beach that have exposed roots taller than me.
Is it just me or do the modular lifeguard towers in Hawaii look a bit like a lunar lander?
After going back up the highway we stopped at the Dolphin Market for some amazingly overpriced, but good tasting, dinner. $32 for a 4″ x 4″ seared ahi steak. In Kona this ran about a third (or less) of that price.
When we got home we did laundry and packed up to fly out the next morning.
