Weekend in Kauai

Ben and I had a great time on the island of Kauai. We couldn't get over how beautiful the island was. The island is similar in size to Oahu. However, whereas Oahu has a population of 900,000 plus the large amount of tourists that are on the island at any given time, Kauai has a population of only 60,000. Kauai is not nearly as developed at Oahu. Everything on Kauai is very lush and green. We didn't want to leave!

Ben and I got to Kauai on Friday evening after only a 25 minute flight. We spent Friday evening picking up the rental car, checking into our hotel, Kauai Palms Hotel, and exploring the island. (We ended up getting a free rental car upgrade. We got to drive around in a Mustang all weekend. Ben was very excited about that.) While exploring the island we drove from the southern part of the island (where we were staying) to the northern most part of the island. We saw beautiful beaches along the way. The northern most part of the island (and all the Hawaiian islands for that matter) was marked by a lighthouse. Unfortunately, it was very dark when we got to the lighthouse and none of the pictures I took turned out.

On Saturday we went on a 6 hour high-speed raft tour along the Na Pali coast. "Na Pali" means cliff in Hawaiian and that's exactly what we saw, cliffs. The whole western coast of Kauai is lined with cliffs and we spent 6 hours exploring the coast's secluded beaches and various sea caves. The water was crystal clear. And Spinner Dolphins swam along side the raft. The Na Pali Coast has been used as the setting for several big movies; Jurassic Park, Indiana Jones, Mighty Joe Young, the new King Kong; etc. It was an unreal experience.

On Sunday, our last day on Kauai, we visited Waimea Canyon. Waimea Canyon is also known as the Grand Canyon of the Pacific. When we first got to the lookout point there was a lot of cloud cover. But we drove a ways down from the lookout and the clouds cleared up and we were able to check the canyon out. The view was very impressive.

After the canyon we ate shrimp at the Shrimp Station. It was delicious. We still had some time to kill before our return plane's departure so we toured the Kauai coffee plantation and the Kauai Kookie store. Talk about yummy souvenirs!

It was a wonderful trip. I can't wait to go back!