Kauai, part 2

Friday: This was a day I was looking forward to!  Most of our days were not planned ahead of time but this one was.  I had made a reservation to park at Haena State Park so we could hike the Napali Coast.  The best way to see this north coastline is probably by boat or helicopter but that would have been really expensive for six people...the only way we were going to see it was by foot.  Brynn's sandals were falling apart so we had to make a quick stop for some new shoes for her.  We ran in the store while the kids played by/on this "bridge."

 

When that was taken care of, we drove all the way north, past Anini and Hanalei, where we had been the day before.  We drove over all the one-way bridges until we literally could not drive any more.  We had made it to the "end of the road" and Haena State Park.  We were impressed just by the views from the parking lot and I knew it was going to be a great day.

  

We had to walk a little bit to get to the trailhead.  We walked on boardwalks through taro fields.  Then along a path through some trees.  We saw Ke'e Beach which is essentially the start of the Kalalau Trail.

The hike is 11 miles long and most people do it in a few days, stopping to camp at night.  The next option is 4 miles in to a waterfall and then 4 miles out.  The last option (what we did) was 2 miles in and 2 miles out.  This was quite the hike, a decent climb for the first mile and a half.  The climb up was mostly in the shade.  It was hard, climbing up, up, up and over rocks.  The glimpses of the coastline made it worth it.

The lookout point was incredible!  Absolutely breath-taking.  Quite literally-the wind almost blew a couple hats away and Stockton wouldn't get any closer to that edge.  This is my favorite picture of the entire week.

 

We kept hiking.  I thought it would start to go down soon but it seemed like we climbed and climbed and climbed.  Eventually we did start going down.  The sun was shining and I loved seeing the coastline as we wove in and out.  The vegetation and plants were awesome too.

almost there...that beach down there is our destination

We made it down to the bottom.  We crossed the river that empties into the ocean and then we were at our destination: Hanakapiai Beach.  I had read and read about how dangerous this beach was so we just sat, ate our lunch, and watched the waves coming in.  Justin and a few of the kids decided to give me a scare and they walked down and put their feet in.  They were fine, obviously.

When we were sufficiently rested, we started to head back across the river and then the ascent.  This was maybe the hardest part because we were climbing in the mid-day sun and it was hot.  But we made it up and then down, down, down in the shade.  We did the hike back a lot quicker than the hike in.  Wow!  What an amazing hike.  The hardest hike we've ever taken the kids on and such an accomplishment when we finished.  This was probably my favorite adventure of the entire trip.

*You can tell that I mostly hiked with the girls on the way back since they are the only ones I have pictures of going down.  Molly and Stockton went ahead at a quicker pace while Justin and I kept Brynn and Ivy busy with little games to keep them going.

We were pretty exhausted after that hike.  We drove back along that north coastline but opted not to get out anywhere other a quick stop in Hanalei Village so Molly could get a hat she had seen the night before.  Then we continued on, found some dinner, got a quick peek at the ocean, and headed back to the condo for showers and bed.  The kids were so good at eating adventurously...we had Indonesian food and Thai food that night and they loved it!

 

Saturday:  Justin had been wanting malasadas all week so this was the day we went on the hunt for some.  We found some and they were yummy! 

Molly had been wanting to find a farmer's market and, lucky for her, there was one in the neighborhood so we made a quick stop.  It was pretty much fresh produce so we got a few things to try at the condo later.  I had read about the sugar loaf or white pineapple so I was looking for that to try.  It was $20 for one pineapple but it was worth every single penny.  Never have I tasted a pineapple so sweet and juicy and delicious.  If I could have filled my suitcase with sugar loaf pineapples, I wouldn't have even thought twice about it.  So, so good.

 

When I was researching for this trip, I came across several excursions that looked awesome if it had been just Justin and I that were vacationing.  They would have been equally awesome with the kids but would have cost a lot more than we were willing to pay.  So we found things that we could do that were cheap or free.  One thing I found was bike riding along the Coconut Coast (east side of island).  The kids were all on board for this activity.  Molly and Stockton got bikes and Brynn and Ivy rode tandem with either Justin or me.   Riding along the coast was so fun!  Some areas on the bike path were hidden from the main road so you could only see those areas on foot or by bike.  We rode past a beach until we found a picnic table where we stopped for lunch.  We went as far north as we could before turning around and heading back.  It was an easy 8-mile round trip.  Much less strenuous than our hike the day before which is exactly what we needed.  None of the kids were up to doing something so physically taxing again.  It was a perfect thing to do for a couple of hours.  Kauai is so cool.

The kids were anxious to do some souvenir shopping so we did that next.  We went back to Coconut Marketplace until everyone had found what they wanted.  We gave them each $10 but they mostly had to use their own funds.  I was wanting to hit the beach again so we decided to drive over to Poipu, the first beach we had been to earlier in the week.  We drove through the cutest little town with some shops and decided to take a detour there before hitting the beach.  Old Koloa Town was darling and we found a few more things that we wanted to take home.

**If you've been to Kauai, you know that there are chickens and cats that roam all over the island.  It was so funny. It was especially fun when we would find a mama and her chicks.

 

When everyone was completely done with shopping, we made it to Poipu Beach and spent a couple of hours there.  Snorkeling a little.  Playing in the sand, jumping waves.  There were several turtles up on the beach that afternoon so that was a treat to see.

 

While we were here we took the chance to walk over to Brenneke's Beach.  This was a body surfing/jump waves kind of beach and Justin and the kids played here for a while.  We also found a sand turtle that someone had made.

 

Stockton had been wanting to go to Shipwreck Beach all week so we decided to head over there to see the sunset.  Apparently at one point you could see a partially buried boat, hence the name of the beach, but you can't see it anymore.  But this was a cool beach!  This beach had the highest waves that we had seen so we watched some amateur surfers.  We had changed into dry clothes but that didn't stop Brynn and Ivy from letting the waves chase them.  They got braver and braver and went further and further out...eventually a wave caught Ivy.  She fell in and got wet.  I remember her being okay with it.  This was our goodbye to the beach.  We had two more days but had things planned that wouldn't put us on a beach.  It was a good send-off with a gorgeous sunset!

haha, Brynn

and Ivy goes down

Sunday:  We had planned an easy day for Sunday.  I love going to church in Hawaii and we were planning on doing that in the morning.  We had found a sacrament meeting that started at 9.  Getting up was easy since I had never fully adjusted off of Utah time.  Brynn and Ivy were so excited to wear their new Hawaiian dresses that they had bought and were ready really quick.  We took a walk around the grounds of the condo while everyone else was getting ready.

 

We drove over to the church and pulled into the parking lot right as Ivy threw up all over her new dress and the rental car.  Poor girl.  We debated about what to do next and thought that maybe one of us would stay with the other kids for the meeting while someone else took Ivy back to the condo to get her and the car cleaned up.  Turns out we were an hour early for stake conference.  At that point we decided that the effort counted and we all headed back to the condo to change and get everything cleaned up.

I put Ivy in the tub while Justin did the dirty work of cleaning the car.  It was actually not too bad in comparison to some other carsick messes we've had in the past.  We let Ivy relax for a bit and she started to feel a little more normal and even wanted to eat something.  We decided to head out on the excursion we had planned for the day.

We thought a scenic drive sounded like a more subdued activity since it was Sunday.  We drove more than an hour up the west coast and then up into the mountains.  It was a windy road up and almost reminded me of Utah at a couple of spots.  But then it was nothing like Utah.  We drove all the way up to Waimea Canyon, also known as "The Grand Canyon of the Pacific."  I've never been to the actual Grand Canyon (on my bucket list) but this was incredible!  The greens and oranges were vivid and the view stretched on and on and on.  Pretty sure the ocean is even out there...or it could be where the horizon meets the blue sky.  We were very much in awe of the view. 

We drove to a couple of other lookout points, one that was Waimea Canyon from a different angle and one that was supposed to show us another view of the Napali Coastline.  Obviously we got there too late in the afternoon-we were at such a high elevation all we saw was mist.  I took a picture of the kids in front of the sign that showed us what it was supposed to look like.

 

Ivy never threw up again but she wasn't 100% yet.  She fell asleep sometime in between the last two lookouts so we decided to drive back down so she could sleep as long as possible.  She was a new girl after an hour of sleep and completely back to normal with a full appetite and all her energy back as well.  The vacationing must have caught up to her that morning because she was fine the rest of the time, as was everyone else.  Phew!

There were a couple places that weren't necessarily worth a separate trip but were on our way back from Waimea so we stopped at both of them.  The first was the Hanapepe Swinging Bridge.  This was a wooden suspension bridge that went over a river and when you got out in the middle of the bridge, it gently swayed side to side.  It's a good thing it wasn't too high above the water because it was slightly unnerving and would have been a lot scarier if it was any higher than that.

 

The other side of the bridge is a little farming village so there's not really anything to see over there. Some people were fishing from the river with homemade fishing poles.  We crossed back to the other side.  Hanapepe was a quaint little town.  We maybe would have meandered through some of the shops but they were all closed for Sunday.  We walked down to the end of the road and found the Lilo and Stitch wall.

The other place we went to was Spouting Horn.  This is where the water comes under a rock table and spouts up through a hole, creating a geyser effect.  It was a quick visit here.

 

The kids had been wanting to swim in the condo pool all week.  Every night they thought they would get back and go swimming.  And every night they were too exhausted to do any swimming.  We made sure we were home not too late that night so they could swim.  We went back to the condo, made some taco salad for dinner, and then they kids went out and swam in the pool for a couple of hours until it got dark.  Justin joined them, I watched.  This was our last night in the condo so we had a lot of work to get everything packed to check out in the morning.

Monday: This was our last day, sniff sniff.  We checked out of our condo at 10 that morning but our flight wasn't leaving until 10 pm that night.  So we still had a full day we just had to take our luggage with us everywhere.  

The first thing we did was visit Wailua Falls.  We didn't have anywhere to be until 12:15 so this seemed like a good thing to do.  The falls were cool to see but parking was hard and the lookout was not the best.  It was hard to get a good look at the waterfall.  We saw that some people had hiked down to the bottom but it was a steep and treacherous walk down.  We took some pictures and left.  There was a man making hats out of some native leaves and Stockton thought that was pretty funny!
 

We took a couple of hours to get the car cleaned inside and out and get some lunch before we made it to our scheduled excursion.  Remember that river we had seen when we visited the Wailua Lookout point back on Wednesday?  We were going to kayak that very river!  Justin was so excited for this.  We had brought one of our paddleboards with us so we rented two kayaks.  It was a 2-mile paddle upstream but the water was calm so it was not hard at all.  It was so pretty and peaceful!

 

After the two miles we pulled out on a river bank and parked our kayaks.  From there we hiked to Uluwehi Falls, or Secret Falls, maybe about 20-30 minutes.  It was a flat hike so the kids were okay with it.  We crossed the river a couple of times, went under leaf tunnels, walked across boardwalks.  It was a cool hike! (And hiking barefoot in Hawaii is totally okay, by the way.)

 

The reward for the hike was a secret waterfall tucked away in all the foliage where you could get in and swim at the base.  Justin and the girls got in right away.  Stockton watched.  I got in a little but not all the way.  It was cold!  And I knew I wasn't going to see a shower until we made it back to Heber the next day.  Call me crazy, but I didn't want river hair for the trip home.  But they had a lot of fun splashing around and Justin even put his head under the waterfall.

 

We enjoyed our hike and paddle out.  Justin and the girls jumped in and swam in the river a few times on the way back.  We changed into dry clothes (what we were wearing home) and went to the Coconut Marketplace one last time.  I loved the yellow curry from the Thai food shack and we also tried some bbq food from Chicken in a Barrel.  We had seen that restaurant in a few different locations around the island and thought we should try it before we left.  We got some snacks/treats for the trip home and shared one last shave ice.  It was hard saying goodbye but I was missing home a little too.

 

We got to the airport early since we didn't know what kind of hoops Justin would have to jump through to get through security with no ID.  I had a checkbook and an insurance card but we had nothing with his picture on it.  They moved us around to a couple of different lines until someone took control of the situation and took Justin while the kids and I went through security with no issues.  I was nervous but it was only a few minutes later when Justin came through.  All the guy did was ask Justin his address, compare it to the address on the checkbook, and then let him through when he got it right.  We were surprised it was so easy but so relieved at the same time.  I will always travel with at least a picture of my ID with me just in case. 

We flew all night and landed in LA at about 6 am California time.  We had a three hour layover there and then flew home.  We slept where and when we could.  We landed in Salt Lake around 12:30 that afternoon, Gene picked us up, and we drove home.  Brynn had cheer that afternoon but nothing else was on the schedule.  We napped, unpacked, and got ready to go back to school the very next day.

go Braves, boo Dodgers

What a trip!  Traveling with kids is a different story than traveling with adults only.  But it was totally worth it.  It sure gave me a desire to take my kids other places.  We had the best week and I loved the mix of beach and adventure.  I am just so grateful for the family time and the memories!