We left Idaho Falls Saturday April 12th and arrived in Lihue, Kaui that night. It was so warm and beautiful even at 10pm! A whole lot nicer than Idaho's never ending winter! Sunday we woke up and attempted to find the nearest church. We drove the wrong way for an hour and when we got back to the condo realized that if we would have went the other way it would have taken 15 minutes and we would have found the church! I was bummed out because I wanted to see what church was like in Hawaii...so that's on the top of our list for the next trip there. We decided to hike down to Sea Lodge beach and relax for the rest of the afternoon. Here's the hike down:
I thought this looked like a picture frame...so I made Matt go behind it for a picture...as you could imagine he wasn't too enthused:
This is Sea Lodge Beach:
The sand at this beach is so cool...it's all made of tiny shells. It kind of hurts to walk on, but its really neat to look at. I layed and played in it for pretty much the whole time we were there :).
On Monday we woke up early and went snorkling at Tunnels Beach. It was a blast! We got a little roughed up on the coral when the tide went down, but it was worth it! And we got to break in our underwater camera! It was really nice that we went early too because the only people there were locals and by the time we were through the tourists started coming.
After we snorkled Matt layed on the beach and and I crawled around digging through the sand for little shells. There was a local lady there doing the same thing, and she had a bucket full of treasures!
After Tunnels we stopped at the condo for a snack and a nap. Then we went to Queen's Bath. This is the path down to it:
This was a cool little waterfall along the path to Queen's Bath.
On the way back we both rinsed off the salt water from the ocean by playing under the waterfall! Here is Matt doing his thing...let me just say if there was ever a picture to zoom in on...this is IT! I'm sending this into Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition for him....I really think he has a chance ;-)!!!
This is Queen's Bath. For those who don't know what it is, it is this pool of water surrounded by rocks that hangs out on the edge of land by the ocean. When the tide is low and clam you can sit in it and swim in it like a pool. When the tide is high only locals and crazy people jump into it becasue the waves crash over the sides of the "pool" and the water gets sucked back out which means it could suck you out too if you are in there.
As you can see in the picture above, the waves are crashing up against the rocks and there are 3 people in the pool. All of them are local. The waves were huge! The kids would jump in at just the right time and then hurry and swim out. Well, if you know Matt then you won't be suprised at the next pictures.
In he jumps...he sees the waves getting ready to hit....
and out he comes...you can't even see the rocks any more...just water. Sooo scary. (Notice the locals tanned skin compared to Matt...too funny)
Needless to say, I was TERRIFIED.
We decided to find a smaller pool so I could swim too. We found one that looked nice, but looks can be decieving.
Looks okay right? Well when I went down to join Matt, a HUGE wave decided to come crashing over and make me smach into the rocks. Matt was smart enough to dive into the pool. Yah, let's just say I'm not going into pools when tide is that high ever again! But it was fun!
That night we ate at Bubba's Burgers...YUMM! We needed some fuel because the next morning we would start our hike on the Na Pali Coast!
Here we are at the begining of our hike. The view all along the hike was UREAL! We were walking along the coastline looking down at the ocean part of the time, and at other times we were walking underneath overgrown trees and greenery. It was amazing!
This next piture is hard for me to look at...brings back bitter memories...:P...so we got to our camp after hiking 6 miles, we were hot and tired, but Matt wanted to hike up to a waterfall that was sapossedley 2 miles from camp. We started up the trail which consisted of these slippery boulders you see around me in the picture. After 45 min or so of hiking we decided it was never going to end and turned back. On the way down the fuel for our stove fell out of Matt's pack. So in order to boil water that night he had to start a fire the hard way. After we boiled a few pots and spilled most of th water we called it quits and went to bed.
Since we didn't want to risk getting sick from the boiled water, we woke up at 4AM so it would be cooler as we hiked out. We had one bottle of water to get us 6 miles. Check out my sweet head lamp:
This is a sweet shot of the coast heading back. We hiked in and out of all those mountains you can see.
The hike out was rough, but we made good time. We saw baby goats, ate guava and some little orange things. The last 2 miles about killed me without any water to drink...but obviously I made it! We were pretty famished so we stopped at the closest food place and got wated and I think I even had a snow cone...Then we hurried back to the condo for a snooze.
That night we shoped in Hanalei and ate at Tropical Taco...Verrry YUMMY....!
The next day we ventured to the south part of the island to shop at Hilo Hatties and buy our "Red Dirt Shirts". Then we drove over to Waimea Canyon. It's pretty amazing! Take a look:
Here's a sweet lookin rooster at the canyon parking lot. Chickens are ALL OVER the island. It's funny to be relaxin at the beach and have a chicken walk right up to you, or to pull into a parking lot and ts full of chickens...good times...
Later we ate at this place called Pizza Hanelai....it was so good we went back the next morning at 10 to eat but had to wait until 12 when they opened. We had to wait though...it was worth it too!
I almost forgot...we went ZIPLINING!!!! It was a blast! We went to Princeville Ranch and went on I think 10 different zip lines. It was a lot of fun and such a pretty view!
One of the days we snorkled Kei beach (if you haven't noticed my spelling is very bad)...it was really neat because there were so many fish! They weren't shy at all and would swim all around you!
And of course you have to do this when your at the beach...how sweet of him...
The last day we were there we stopped at the lighthouse and bird conservatory. We saw a seal soakin up the sun on some rocks, and we also saw tons of birds! It was pretty neat.
Well that's it! It was lots of fun and well worth it! We definately want to go back!
