We spent the remainder of our trip on Kauai, just north of Lihue (where the airport is) at the Kauai Hilton. At the Hilton, we had an "ocean view" room. I was nervous about this—there were "ocean view" rooms and then there were "ocean front" rooms, and there was a $50/night difference between them. I was concerned that our "view" might require leaning over the balcony railing and getting out our binoculars. But I was pleasantly surprised. Our ocean view wasn't as pretty as at Lahaina Shores on Maui, but we could definitely see and hear the surf, and the Hilton had a really nice pool area.
For some reason, we had the worst time deciding what to do on our first day on Kauai. We knew we wanted to see the Napali Coast, a scenic area with sea cliffs that drop dramatically to the ocean. But you can see the Napali Coast in any number of ways: On foot via hiking trails, by air on a helicopter or an ultralight, or by sea via boat or kayak. There were a lot of options, and we debated it for way too long.
In the end, we decided to hike the first two miles of the Kalalau Trail. (Our other option was an 11-mile loop hike on a different trail. A few years ago, we probably would have tried it, but I guess we were just too lazy this time.) The Kalalau Trail is almost 12 miles in each direction, and it's supposed to be one of the best ways to see Napali. The problem is that it's extremely steep in places, and if you go further than two miles on the trail, you need a permit because it's assumed you'll be camping overnight. So, the first two miles was it for us. Here's a view of Ke'e Beach, where the trail starts:
At first we sort of felt like losers for not doing more hiking here—I think Bob and I have established a pattern of doing the most crazy, over-the-top things we can come up with when we travel, rather than the usual leisurely vacation activities. ("Spend three days hiking the Andes with no training or preparation whatsoever? Yeah, let's do it!") But in this case, we agreed that less was probably more, and we ended up being happy with what we did. (Does that mean we're getting old?) But this hike definitely offered quality over quantity.
Here are a couple of shots of us enjoying the trail.
We hiked a little over an hour to reach Hanakapi'ai Beach. A freshwater mountain stream leads down to the beach.
And here's our reward for hiking: The beach itself. We spent about an hour on the beach before turning around and heading back to our car.
The mountain stream meandered through the sand and carved a sort of overhang into a cliff next to the beach before joining the ocean.
Here I am sitting in the shade under the cliff overhang.
There are wild chickens everywhere on Kauai (including this one, which we saw on the hike). Everywhere you go, any time of day, there's a constant background murmur of clucking and roosters crowing. Apparently all of the Hawaiian islands had these chickens at one time, but now they're only on Kauai. We heard that it's because the mongoose was introduced to the islands, eventually killing all the chickens, except on Kauai. Apparently, when the mongoose shipment showed up at Kauai, one of the rodents bit a dock worker. It made the worker so mad that he wouldn't accept the shipment, and the chickens of Kauai were spared.
After the hike, we drove around a bit more, checked out Wailua Falls, and briefly hung out at the hotel pool. We finished off the day by getting takeout at a "saimin" place that was packed with native Hawaiians and was as hot as a blast furnace (electricity is insanely expensive in Hawaii, so there's surprisingly little air conditioning). Saimin is an Asian noodle dish that's kind of like ramen in a very flavorful broth. We took it back to our hotel and ate on our "ocean view" balcony. Every single item on this place's menu included something called "fish cake" as one of its ingredients, but Bob bravely tried it anyway ... and actually liked it! Well, until I said I thought I could taste the fish. Then suddenly he didn't like it as much anymore. Hmmm.
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