Mahaulepu (Happy Place)

Mahaulepu is perfect. It's going on my list (along with Versailles) of places I go to in my head when I need to check out of reality for a bit.















We would've hiked this place for days.





Ben contemplates the sea:



Steve contemplates the sea:

Let's Get Lost

From Waimea and Awa'awa'puhi Hike

Day 1 after my sister's amazing perfect Kauai wedding found us road-tripping in strange new places and getting lost and sunburned in the jungle.

Drove up to Waimea canyon in our teeny rental car, the wretched and angry Nissan Versa.





It was a Sunday, so all the access roads were open and hunters were everywhere. Saw a guy in full fatigues with a compound bow just walking by the side of the road. I was too scared to take pictures.

It took us almost 2 hours just to get to the 'official' canyon view area because our car was so angry, and because we stopped at every single viewpoint.





And I had to hop about in the red dirt and make Ben take pictures of me.



The actual viewpoint is a paved parking lot crawling with noisy families. We are mean old codgers who are easily irritated by children, so we fled without taking any pictures.

The road continued upwards so we followed it, and is became so incredibly full of potholes that we had to drive under 5 mph to avoid wrecking the tires. (This was not the last time we wished we'd rented a Jeep). Then we found this place:



And it also had a sign (no pictures sorry) that said 'dangerous cliff hiking'. Of course we got excited. But I hate hiking (or anything more strenuous than walking the dog). Ben convinced me to walk for 30 minutes, and if we didn't see anything, we'd head back.



Okay, fine.



I'm a city girl, and will always prefer cities over nature any day, but this is one of the most beautiful places I've ever been. It even smelled amazing (tuberose or something), and was so quiet that we could hear roosters crowing and goats bleating from across the valleys on either side of the ridge (only in Kauai can you be miles from civilization with a barnyard soundtrack).



I do wish, however, that we'd remembered sunscreen.



... And water.



I blame the guy we ran into just about exactly 30 minutes in, who swore up and down that the end of the trail was just 40 minutes ahead.

2 hours later, we made it:





The scale of this was insane. Note the tiny speck in the photo below. That is a helicopter.



So we get back to the condo and I started Googling our hike, and discovered that we had started at 4500 feet above sea level and hiked down more than 1500 ft to the viewpoint. And then back up. 7 miles total. I am proud of myself, which is sad, because at least half my friends are highly capable fitness-minded people who update their status regularly with insane running-type stuff like 'Just completed 16 miles and I feel great!' and I did not feel great after that hike, I felt stabby.

Stupid birdie stuff

When I see birds I get like this:



I am totally going to seriously take up birdwatching after I turn 30 and no longer care about what my husband thinks of me. But I can't help it if all the best Kauai pictures have birds in them, so consider this the beginning of a slippery slope that can only end in horror, pain, and a hobby derided only slightly less than stamp collecting.



I'm not even going to name this bird because nobody cares except me and it will preserve my street cred. Anyway, this photo was taken at Mahaulepu Beach, which is one of the most ridiculously beautiful places we've ever seen, but I'm going to show you photos of little gray birds instead.



Same type of bird, different beach. Secret Beach! 20 foot waves on this day.



This is Moku'ae'ae Islet wildlife sanctuary with some Hawaiian geese in the foreground. The little white specks on the islet are albatross. Albatrosses? Albatrossi. Anyway.

Here's one in flight by the Kilauea lighthouse:





I shall love him and squeeze him and name him George.

And the requisite Kauai Rooster Portrait: