For those of you who want the short version: I came, I saw and I loved Kaua'i!
The long version:
I'm with Joy and Steve Young now, in sunny California, which means that I'm back from Hawai'i and considerably browner than I was when I left Colorado. This of course does not mean that I am brown by South African standards, only by Colorado ones!
Anyway, back to Hawai'i. You wouldn't believe our luck on the flight there. When Nina, Sue, Rose and I got to the airport in Denver Nina asked if we could maybe change our seats to isle seats as she's tall and wanted more leg room. Well, they upgraded us to Business Class! It was really awesome, we just loved it!
Anyway, we had a bit of a stop in Honolulu between flights, so we took the bus to Pearl Harbour, which was just SO interesting. They have this whole free tour that you can do that includes a movie with great footage of the bombing, as well as a boat trip out to the USS Arizona monument, which is a really cool monument built over where the Arizona sunk, and you can actually see quite a bit of the ship (also awesome views of Honolulu).Anyway, got a taxi back over to airport and met Denise and Aileen for our flight over to Kaua'i.
The island is just incredible. It reminded me just a bit of the Natal South Coast at home, but bigger mountains and more waterfalls, a bit more 'spectacular'. We got the coolest, brand new, cherry red SUV! We all piled into it and drove up to our condo in Princeville, which is a resort community based around a golf course and right on the coast- and our 'lanai' overlooked the sea off over a cliff, so we really lucked out on it!
The first day we had priorities, two of which were (needless to say) finding a beach and getting a sarong each. I got the prettiest hand painted pink one, with a multitude of other coloured flowers painted on it. Nina, Sue and Rose wasted no time making friends, and organised with this one guy, Justin (who turned out to be a freak!), to meet us on his day off (which conveniently was the next day) and show us some good spots. He took us to the 'Shell Cave', which was a bit of a climb down the cliff, but was just awesome, and we all found some really pretty shells, although my claim to fame was a flat rock with a hole through it! We then went to Hanalei beach, which is where they filmed a lot of the movies such as South Pacific, and was also the inspiration for “Puff the Magic Dragon”. We also went to a club called Trade Winds, which was a bit skanky, but a lot of fun - and Rose made friends with this really nice guy called Mark, who would turn out to be a much better guide than Justin.
Well, more beaches, sand and swimming and then we went to have a look at 'Sprouting Horn' which is this spray that “sprouts” up from the ocean through this old volcanic tube. Really Pretty. We also spent one day up at Waimea Canyon, which is the "Grand Canyon of Hawai'i", only, I think, not quite so big! It was really beautiful, and we managed to get nice and dirty with the red sand of Kaua'i on a short hike! Rose and I had fantastic Margaritas at this place called (wait for it) 'Margaritas' and had a toast to Hope, who was sadly missed on our trip (and who also loves margaritas!). Mark showed us some really amazing beaches up on the North Shore, including Bali Hai, which is just too beautiful!
We also spent two days on Ke'e beach, which is really pretty and is kinda strange because there are these really huge waves, but there's a large coral reef, so the waves are broken and you're left with calm water by the beach to swim and snorkel in. I've also got a whole lot of my photo's back, and they really turned out well.
So, all in all, a really wonderful trip. And, although on the expensive side, really worth it!
I'm now having a great time in Davis (and you won't believe that Warren is more jealous of me being here than in Hawaii!), doing some good shopping, not that my suitcase can actually fit anything else in it (I
can always wear more clothes on the plane, right?), and today went to see this gorgeous puppy that Joy and Steve are going to get next week. It is just the cutest thing I have ever seen!
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