Honeymooners: Day 6, 7 & 8

Read about day 1, days 2 & 3, and days 4 & 5. 
Click any picture to enlarge it.

FINALLY finishing our honeymoon series!  It shouldn't have taken this long to finish, sorry!


Day 6:

Today we conquered part of the Na Pali Coast.  It is one of the most beautiful trails in the entire world.  It is also, according to Backpacker Magazine, one of America's top 10 most dangerous hikes.  The hike itself, the Kalalau trail, is 11 miles one way to a beach that you can only get to by foot or boat.  We didn't hike the whole thing because that would require backpacking (maybe someday!).  Instead, we hiked 2 miles in to a very nice beach (Hanakapi'ai) and then 2 miles inland to a very famous waterfall (Hanakapi'ai Falls).
 

 We left Haena Beach for Hanakapi'ai.  It wasn't too intense of a hike (just some slippery rocks at the beginning), but just look at what we found at the beach....

Isn't this the scariest sign you've ever seen?!  We even saw people swimming in the water...

Anyways, we then left the beach and hiked inland to go to Hanakapi'ai Falls.  This waterfall is made famous from Jurassic Park!  If you've seen it, then you know that when they first land on Jurassic Park they fly down a waterfall with the helicopter.  Well, that scene is THIS waterfall!  SO COOL!

The trailhead marker said that this hike was only 2 miles one way, but it definitely felt a LOT longer than that.  It involved a lot of mud.. a lot.. and climbing over rocks, fording rivers and getting very dirty.  But, it was a beautiful hike into the jungle.

Complete with bamboo!

After a long, long, 2 miles we made it.  It was amazing!  300 ft of just water falling.  

 

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Day 7:

We had the choice of staying 7 or 8 days before our return flight, so we chose to stay 8, duh!  But, we couldn't get condo that long so we decided that we would just camp out one night.  Plus, we didn't want to spend extra on an overpriced hotel.

We chose to campout on the south/southwestern side of the island and explore that area.

Kauai is seriously night and day on different parts of the island.  Northern/eastern is all wet, beachy, and foresty, while the southern end has a huge dry canyon.

Waimea Canyon is beautiful. 

We wandered around the trails and just soaked in the beauty of the island.

Later we went to explore the city of Waimea.   
And that's all I've got to say about that...

Just kidding.  There really wasn't much in Waimea.  They had a few little shops (same merchandise as most of the other places) and some very nice... sculptures.  

Just a little weird, right?!

Anyways, after being creeped out, we went to the "park" that we were camping at.  Unfortunately I don't have any pictures of the area that we stayed at, but it was a fenced-in baseball field with an eating area and beach nearby.  Not really the most romantic spot, but hey, we were camping in Hawaii!


We found out when we got there that there was a homeless camp right next to the park and you had to set up your tent in the baseball field and park by the beach.  I felt a little weird leaving all of our stuff in the car, which was parked pretty far away from our tent, so we actually ended up sleeping in our car.  Thank you fold-down seats and not so awful leg room.

We only woke up with little leg cramps and little sleep, but hey, we had a long flight ahead of us, so we were going to get our sleep in somehow.


We took an uneventful plane ride home (THANK YOU for nothing crazy happening) and thus concludes our honeymoon.

Thanks for tagging along :)

Honeymooners: Day 4 & 5

Find day 1 here and days 2 & 3 here.
Click any pictures to enlarge. 



Day 4:

We went on an awesome hike our third day on the island.   We hiked up a mountain ridge called Nonou Mountain.  It was FAR better than our hiking book led on.  It's about a 1.5 mile hike up to this picnic shelter.  Along the way you get amazing views of the south shore.  Up at the top you get a couple different viewpoints of the northern mountains and the south shore.  Nick, however, found a trail that led up even higher than the picnic shelter.  So we hiked about 1/2 mile more and also did some rock scrambling to the very top of Nonou mountain.  It was AWESOME!!!  We had an alomst 360 degree view from the top.  

 

 Isn't this incredible?!

The only downside to this hike was that it was INCREDIBLY humid the whole time.  We did the hike in the morning (around 9 or 10) and we were dripping with sweat by the time we got to the top.  It was worth it, though.  

My monkey husband, right before a chunk of rock gave way and hit his lip.

After that awesome adventure we went snorkeling in Poipu.  It is an awesome beach! (Unfortunately we didn't get any pictures except with our underwater camera)  The fish there all swim right under you!  It was crazy and a lot of fun.


Then we went shopping in Koloa and decided to go out to dinner.  We found this restaurant kind of on accident called Tiano's.  It was pretty good food for a decent price.  We even had a pretty awesome waitress.

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Day 5:

On day 5 we decided to chill out and we spent quite a bit of our time walking around shops looking for cool souvenirs to take home.  Nick and I went to this craft fair in Kapa'a and found handmade wine bottle holders that could be personalized!  So we got a couple and had our names put on them :)

We then played in the pool a bit, BBQ'd and went to Lumaha'i again to watch the sunset.  It was awesome!  We sat on the beach for awhile and there were a ton of these little crabs. 

We had some fun playing with the crabs and we chilled on the beach until the sun went down.  It was wonderful :)  We love Kauai!

Come back for part IV! 

Honeymooners: Day 2 & 3

Find day 1 here.
Click any pictures to enlarge.

Welcome back folks.  Continuing on our honeymoon, to your right you'll see...

Day 2:

We had planned to do lots of hiking, but it was actually spent shopping.  We ended up driving about 1 hour to Costco and we realized, as soon as we got there, that we forgot our Costco card!  So we had to forget it and just drive to the nearest Safeway.  I was pretty upset.  I mean, COSTCO!

We also found out that it costs about twice as much to buy food there compared to the mainland.  Good thing we're so rich, right.

Speaking of rich, here's our sweet rental!

After about 245 3 hours of shopping and time wasting, we were able to enjoy our day.  We went to Anini beach and it was awesome.  The water on the ocean was so incredibly warm!  We floated and swam in the ocean and really enjoyed soaking up the sun.

We then hiked the first mile of the Powerline trail.  It is a hike that travels along the Hanalei Valley next to, you guessed it, the power lines!

We got to hike around in parts of the jungle and witness the beautiful flora of the island.  There were so many different plants and flowers!

We ended our day with a long walk around the community of Princeville (our temporary home) and a very refreshing dip in the hot tub and pool.

PS.  Chickens & roosters are EVERYWHERE on the island.

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Now, to your left, you'll find the ever popular...

Day 3:  

We stopped at the Kilauea lighthouse first thing in the morning, but it cost to get in so we didn't go up to it, but it was really beautiful! 

 

After we made that short pit stop at the lighthouse, we went to check out Anini beach (again).  It was really beautiful!  We didn't swim, but we walked around and sat for a bit and watched a few surfers and a cool kayaker.  It was really nice and relaxing.  What a vacation should be!
 

Then, we went to Bubba's Burgers.  It is apparently Robert Downey Jr's favorite place to eat in Kauai... okay.  It was pretty good for a burger place.  Not the best burger in the world, but you can't beat the location.

After getting fueled up from some good burgers, we walked around Kapa'a.  A very cool town!  There are a lot of shops and even more art galleries.  Have I mentioned that there are a TON of art galleries?  A lot of them are really cool.  Anyways, Nick ended up getting a cool t-shirt and I got a new dress.  Success!

We then heard from some guy in the hot tub that night about this secret locals-only-know-about-it-beach.  We decided to go find it and we found it pretty easily.  It is about a 1/4 mile hike down a hill and it's a BEAUTIFUL beach!  Oh my goodness!  There weren't that many people, but it was very amazing.  Check it out for yourself.

I haven't mentioned this yet, but past all of the condo complexes there is a little grass area that overlooks the ocean.  There are chairs and some really awesome BBQs that are right next to the cliffs.  Nick and I decided to BBQ our dinner.  It was amazing!

We ate and watched the sunset :)  Then we did our normal nighttime thing, which involves handing out in the pool/hot tub.  Kauai is an amazing island.


We'll continue our tour at a later date... stay tuned!

Honeymooners: Day 1

I did a series on our wedding and now I want to share with you the second best part of getting married, the honeymoon!! (the first part being the wedding and saying "I do")

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We were incredibly fortunate to have a lot of help with the wedding and even with the honeymoon as well.  As a wedding gift from my grandparents AND my great aunt and uncle, we got to take an amazing honeymoon to Kauai!  I still can't thank them enough for all that they did for us.

Before the Kauai plans, Nick and I were planning on just taking a simple road trip down the Oregon coast or renting a cabin on a mountain somewhere.  When my family heard of this, they decided to step in!  

My grandparents used their timeshare for a condo in Princeville, Kauai and my aunt & uncle used some of their air mileage to get us a plane there.

Anyways, we left a week after the wedding.  We got to the airport 2 hours before our flight, and it's a good thing we did, because apparently we were listed as being on the plane!  This is where I start freaking out, but my husband acts very chill.  Long story short, my uncle bought tickets and a month later my aunt's wallet was stolen so they cancelled their credit card, well they forgot about the airline tickets and so therefore, it was like we never purchased tickets!  Well, we got a hold of my uncle (which took 30 minutes too long), and he eventually sorted things out.

After all of that we found out that the plane had to get fixed so our flight got changed (originally to 12 and then to 2!!).  I was freaking out  nervous, again, because we had a rental car to pick up at a certain time and I didn't want to get charged for being late to our pickup time.  Yes, I may have overreacted because I am a woman.  While waiting in line for our food vouchers, we found out that our flight had actually got rerouted.  So instead of taking 2 planes to get to Kauai we had to take 3.

A little crazy, but finally on our first plane of the day!

Our first flight left at 9:20 (we arrived at the terminal RIGHT when they were loading) and flew into Maui.  Then we hopped on another plane to Honolulu.  Once we got to Honolulu we were put on stand-by for the flight to Kauai.  Hello nerves!  By this time we were really sick and tired of flying and very hungry (we weren't going to spend our precious honeymoon dough on very expensive airport food).

The only food we ate (besides airplane food) for the entire day.

Airport #2, in Maui

Airport #3, in Honolulu.  Notice how our smiles seem to slowly diminish after each picture.

After about 20 minutes of sitting nervously, we finally got called to the plane (a great feeling, even though we had to sit in different seats, but we just wanted to get there!).

We found the rental car spot, paid $20987345780 for the rental car (seriously, they charged us about $300 more than what I orginally saw on the website), stopped for some delicious dinner, and got to the hotel just in time to watch the sunset on top of our cliff.  BEAUTIFUL!

Awesome restaurant called Wahooo in Kapa'a on Kauai.

Part 1 of our meal, clam chowder and clam soup with seasoned green beans.

The dinner we shared.  I think it was some kind of fish over seasoned mashed potatoes.   It was incredibly good.

We took a video the day we got there to show everybody our awesome condo and thank my grandparents.  Just ignore our silly comments and my very bad video taking skills (I learned later to NOT switch angles).

Also, I think this is the first video I've posted of us on here.  Woah!  Awesome.

Stay tuned for more of our honeymoon!