Kauai - Day 3

Kauai - Day 3

Morning ritual here is get up early, make some coffee and walk out onto the beach. Check out the weather conditions, enjoy the sunrise and comb for shells. We first head out to Tunnels/Makua to see how the conditions look. There is no one in the parking lot so we decide to try and find the road closer to the snorkel area . Just before we pull out we walked across the road to check out the dry cave... cool place to grab a photo. Now on to see if we can find the road to park on. We passed it once and had to turn around. A group is just leaving and let us know the visibilty was bad due to rough surf. We decide to pack up our stuff and as they say "chase the sun"!

Looking into the cave and then looking back out - across the road is the parking lot at Ha'ena State Park - access to Tunnels.

We stop at the Wake Up Cafe in Hanalei Bay. Mac Nut Cinnamon rolls... just go and have one. We shared one and then each had Hang Ten Breakfast - eggs, sausage and hashbrowns. Great food, awesome service - NOTE - they only take cash or travelers checks - so have cash and you are good to go.

We head down the road and my thoughts are we will snorkel at Lyngate, but the great app from Kauai Explorer tells me the swells on that side of the island are big and the visiability is fair. So with this information we decide to head further South to Poipu. There is a great parking lot right across the street from the park/beach access. There are two sides to Poipu as there is a Tombolo in the middle, very cool spot to walk all the way out and shoot a picture back towards the beach. When we arrive there is a turtle resting right on the beach next to the water. We head into the right side first and right off the bat there are huge fish, not as much variety, but huge fish. After a little break we head into the left side. Smaller fish and a great variety! Including two eels... It is on this side that rocks have been placed in the sand to spell out Poipu and there are fish everywhere. We had packed a lunch, so we enjoyed that on the beach. It was a cloudy day, and we still had waves crashing on the reef - but it was our best choice for the day. I think that is something to keep in mind when planning. If your itenary is so locked down that you cannot flex for the weather... you may set yourself up for some frustration. Leave your "mainland" ways back home and be open to letting the day unfold.

We head up to Kukui'ula Village Shopping and the Halelea Gallery. They had posted some of the artist's work they represent on Instagram. Beautiful shop and outstanding service. We also visited Poipu Surf and discovered Surfers Salve.... An amazing product that calms sunburn, bug bites, on and on. I have already gone back and picked up 4 more tubes!

From here we head up the road to the sweet little town of Koloa for one stop.

We refer to our list and realize we are close to the Allerton Garden. I call to see if they have room on the next tour which starts in about 15 min and they do. So we get on our way and make it there with a little time to spare. By this point my phone is dead.... no pictures and to be honest... I really enjoyed just soaking it in. Beautiful place and learned so much about the plants that make Kauai so beautiful. It is a beautiful walk through the gardens... we had an active group so our sweet guide tossed in a walk down to the house and beach - amazing. I think if you take the dinner tour, the dinner is served down at the house and you will have access to the beach. Our tour was right at 3 hours and well worth the fee.... a place well worth the support!

Sprouting Horn is just across the street from Allerton, with a bit of a South swell it was putting on quite a show. There was a guy there with a drone camera thing... His pictures had to be crazy amazing!

Realizing it is Cinco De Mayo, the Tortilla Republic is a great choice and bonus... it's taco tuesday... so half price tacos! The food was awesome, we had the nachos and three kinds of tacos.

We make the drive back North and crash.

Great day... another really great day!

 

** Trip Tip **

The List - My husband had requested I not over plan this trip so we went with plans for days 4-5-6, and "the list". What's the list? My way to go with the flow and it worked great. I made a list organized by area of "options". I included hours of operation, links to web sites or driving directions. I included places to eat, hike, snorkel, shop and places of interest. I emailed it to myself and it worked great. When we found ourselves in an area and a bit of time... I just pulled up the trip options list.