well now that I've been home from the honeymoon for about a month, maybe it's time I write a little about it!
For our honeymoon Doug and I chose to go to Hawaii. Neither of us had ever been there, the weather is supposed to be pretty steady year round, and we just wanted to go there. A
couple friends of ours went there on their honeymoon and couldn't say enough good things about it, so that also sealed the deal.
We chose Kauai to be the first island to go to. We had heard that it was pretty low-key, and laid-back and that sounded perfect after weeks of wedding planning craziness, and finishing up school. A couple days after the wedding, off we went!
(I still find uploading pics to blogger to be tedious and time-consuming and I have to get back to studying! So these will most likely be the highlight pics :))
In general, we really liked Kauai. We stayed in a condo up on the Northshore, and used our trusty AAA tourguide book and went on mini excursions everyday.
We saw a lighthouse/ bird sanctuary
we walked on the beach and saw a 'spouting horn'
Doug loved driving the Wrangler, we had 3 total during our trip. We liked this little city called Hanalei, they had good food, cute shops, a delicious fresh juice shack, and pretty beaches. One of those beaches was in the movie South Pacific where the lady sang about washing a man out of her hair.
On this island we had 2 pretty big day trips. The first one was a hike along the Napali Coast. This could have been a one-way 11 mile hike that later we found out people just live out there in the wilderness... no thanks... my aunt also told me later a part of the trail is just a foot or so wide over a cliff with no rope or anything and people do fall off. We just hiked 2 miles along the coast, and then we hiked another 4 mile round trip in towards the middle of the island to a waterfall. The trail was steep, rocky, muddy, and in parts completely covered in ants. We were sore for days afterwards, but it was beautiful.
(the view back at the Coast, after hiking 8+ miles we walked another mile on the beach to get to a place with excellent snorkeling. Doug snorkeled a bit but I was cold and a party poop and did not!)
The other really cool thing we did on Kauai was drive through the Waimea Canyon. It was said that this is the Grand Canyon of Hawaii, one thing is for sure, it is very beautiful.
waterfall off the cliff
the guidebook describes it as 10 miles of gorges cut into the plateau, it looked like it went on and on. Planes flying through the canyon looked like little toys
Another lookout, this time out towards the bay. When we got to the lookout it was covered in fog. Doug told a tourist who walked up that "he just mist it". Hardy har har. So we went back to the car and took a look at the map of where to go next, and noticed it looked like it was clearing up. We walked back over and were rewarded with that view!
more canyon
The canyon was on the southwest side of Kauai, but you couldn't continue driving up because of the sea cliffs. So we had to drive all the way back around and up. This was a view on the way home.
We really liked Kauai. A couple downsides, it wasn't really super sunny there. (Maybe it was just the time of year?) This island has a mountain in the middle with the world's wettest spot. And it did rain a bit everyday. I guess I had just imagined laying around in a bikini all day getting brown, but it wasn't really sunny or hot enough. The other crazy thing about Kauai is that years ago a hurricane came and I guess it freed chickens from a chicken farm. Since there are no predators on the island the chickens have taken over. So bright and early every morning around 5:30am Mr. Rooster was outside our door waking us up. So we didn't really get to sleep in much. (one more fun fact, on Kauai wild boar outnumber people 4 to 1!) In general, we really liked the island, got a chance to kick back and relax, and when the week was up we were ready for a little more busyness and adventure on Maui.
To be continued....
(I still find uploading pics to blogger to be tedious and time-consuming and I have to get back to studying! So these will most likely be the highlight pics :))
In general, we really liked Kauai. We stayed in a condo up on the Northshore, and used our trusty AAA tourguide book and went on mini excursions everyday.
We saw a lighthouse/ bird sanctuary
we walked on the beach and saw a 'spouting horn'
Doug loved driving the Wrangler, we had 3 total during our trip. We liked this little city called Hanalei, they had good food, cute shops, a delicious fresh juice shack, and pretty beaches. One of those beaches was in the movie South Pacific where the lady sang about washing a man out of her hair.
On this island we had 2 pretty big day trips. The first one was a hike along the Napali Coast. This could have been a one-way 11 mile hike that later we found out people just live out there in the wilderness... no thanks... my aunt also told me later a part of the trail is just a foot or so wide over a cliff with no rope or anything and people do fall off. We just hiked 2 miles along the coast, and then we hiked another 4 mile round trip in towards the middle of the island to a waterfall. The trail was steep, rocky, muddy, and in parts completely covered in ants. We were sore for days afterwards, but it was beautiful.
(the view back at the Coast, after hiking 8+ miles we walked another mile on the beach to get to a place with excellent snorkeling. Doug snorkeled a bit but I was cold and a party poop and did not!)
The other really cool thing we did on Kauai was drive through the Waimea Canyon. It was said that this is the Grand Canyon of Hawaii, one thing is for sure, it is very beautiful.
waterfall off the cliff
the guidebook describes it as 10 miles of gorges cut into the plateau, it looked like it went on and on. Planes flying through the canyon looked like little toys
Another lookout, this time out towards the bay. When we got to the lookout it was covered in fog. Doug told a tourist who walked up that "he just mist it". Hardy har har. So we went back to the car and took a look at the map of where to go next, and noticed it looked like it was clearing up. We walked back over and were rewarded with that view!
more canyon
The canyon was on the southwest side of Kauai, but you couldn't continue driving up because of the sea cliffs. So we had to drive all the way back around and up. This was a view on the way home.
We really liked Kauai. A couple downsides, it wasn't really super sunny there. (Maybe it was just the time of year?) This island has a mountain in the middle with the world's wettest spot. And it did rain a bit everyday. I guess I had just imagined laying around in a bikini all day getting brown, but it wasn't really sunny or hot enough. The other crazy thing about Kauai is that years ago a hurricane came and I guess it freed chickens from a chicken farm. Since there are no predators on the island the chickens have taken over. So bright and early every morning around 5:30am Mr. Rooster was outside our door waking us up. So we didn't really get to sleep in much. (one more fun fact, on Kauai wild boar outnumber people 4 to 1!) In general, we really liked the island, got a chance to kick back and relax, and when the week was up we were ready for a little more busyness and adventure on Maui.
To be continued....
Ahhhh it makes me miss it so much!!! You went everywhere we went and more! We never made it to the canyon! So pretty! Looks like such a lovely time! Bummer about the rain though, a tourist had told us if it was raining on the north shore to just drive to the south shore and it would be sunny so that's what we did so we could lay on the beach most of the time (that is how I like to vacation, ha!) But so fun! And so pretty, I swear it got even more beautiful!!
ReplyDeleteI think the canyon looked great with the mist. +1 for Doug's puns. :)
ReplyDeleteSo were you humming the Jurassic Park theme song the whole time? Cause a lot of it was filmed there too!