Beautiful Plans: Hawaii Part One (Kauai)

Hello! As many of you might know Simon and I went to Hawaii for our honeymoon last November. Wow, so much has happened between now and then it’s hard to believe that it’s only been a few months but I wanted to give you a run-down all about the trip, what we did and what we recommend. You know, just in case any of you are thinking of going… Or would like to reminisce or dream through our experiences. Ha.

So here we go…

We flew Hawaiian Airlines from Melbourne to Honolulu via Sydney on November 13 and stocked up on Krispy Kremes and coffee at Melbourne Airport. You know, just to start to get into the USA eating habits right away after all the deprivation leading up to the wedding.

Hawaiian Air was great! Would totally recommend them! Which reminds me, as you read through the rest of this post click here for your soundtrack! Thank you Friendly Fires…

Once we arrived in Honolulu we had a day and a night there, we stayed in some Salvation Army accommodation which was not only really affordable but really nice too. The Salvation Army in Honolulu is really prevalent, it was really encouraging to see…

In any case, the next day we got up and went back to the airport, had breakfast at Burger King, where we discovered the Croissantwhich…

Apologies the Croissan’which… The ‘t’ is silent because either a. Burger King is posh like that or b. They couldn’t fit it on their packaging… Hmmm

In any case from there we travelled to the island of Kauai…

As you can see Honolulu (the main tourist port for Hawaii) is on the island of Oahu. We travelled NorthWest to the island of Kauai. The other two main islands that we didn’t get to see (next time) were ‘The Big Island’ where the active volcanoes are and Maui.

We came back to Oahu but we’ll tell you more about that in our next post. For now… Kauai!

We LOVED Kauai! It is known as The Garden Isle and is the best island for physical beauty and a quieter, more secluded holiday. Just what we were after for our honeymoon!

We stayed at Kauai Beach Resort while we were there (our most luxurious part of the trip). We loved it sooo much!

Here’s us goofing around once we got to our room…

We loved our room! It was so Hawaiian chic… When we weren’t messing up the bed by goofing around!

This was our view from one angle of our room…

Beach!

And this was our view from the other angle…

Palm Trees! … and a carpark heehee… But even though we hadn’t paid for an ocean view room or anything like that it was all still really nice. The resort was quite secluded and the beach was a bit too rough to swim on which made it really quiet and nice. Just what we were after!

The resort had several different pools, some with waterfalls, some with sand bottoms and one with a water slide. There were two different outdoor grotto-style spas as well which we loved!

They also had a bar/cafe right between a couple of the pools so you could order drinks and sit by the pool!

We stuck to our mocktails but LOVED it all the same!

The first night we were there there was a production of South Pacfic which we went to go see. Although we were the youngest couple in the room (hello buffet dinner and a show! Winking smile ) we thought it was really cool because along with movies such as Jurassic Park being filmed on this island the movie version of South Pacific was also filmed on Kauai!

Two of my most favourite things about Kauai was;

1. The buffet breakfasts we ate at Kauai Beach Resort every morning (included in our accommodation package).

2. The chickens!

In 2002 there were a couple of tropical cyclones that passed right over the island of Kauai. A lot of people there keep domestic chickens in cages in their back yards. When the cyclones came these chicken coops were flown open and chickens were flung all over the island! Anywhere else they might get eaten by foxes or other predators but on the island of Kauai there are no natural predators for our feathered friends so they, naturally, multiplied and now they can be found all over the island! Driving along the street, walking on the beach, sitting by the pool, you are bound to see a chicken walk on by! Brings new meaning to ‘why did the chicken cross the road?’!

Simon’s favourite thing was the lemonade…

Being the typical Australian country boy that he is, he had never tasted ‘real’ American lemonade! They don’t serve LemonLime&Bitters in the USA so his go-to from then on was ‘lemonade’!

Anyway, moving on, for the first few days we just relaxed at the resort, slept in (getting up only for that magnificent buffet breakfast), hung by the pool etc. We went for a walk along the beach…

And saw where Jurassic Park was filmed…

Just kidding, that was the other side of the golf course…

But then, once we had recovered a little bit from the craziness and excitement of the wedding and the plane ride over we decided to explore the island a little bit. So we hired a car from the resort (so handy that they had car hire on site) and drove around.

On the island of Kauai there is basically one highway that goes all the way around the island but stops at a certain point at the top of the island for a number of miles where it reaches cliff faces… So basically, since we weren’t far away from the airport in Lihue, which is at the South East of the island, we could either go left or right (East or West) on the highway at the end of our resort’s long driveway.

We went right (East) and travelled all the way to the end of the highway without stopping and it took us about an hour and a half. And it was Spec.Tac. ULAR!

If you can find the Napali Coastline on this map above that is as far as you can drive. When we got there guess what we found on the beach? You guessed it… Chickens!

Even chickens eating out of a coconut!

It wasn’t the best day for taking photos, it was quite overcast and hazy but this is what I managed to snap of the Napali Coast.

Here’s a pic of what it looks like on a good day with a professional photographer.

You can hike up over the coast to get spectacular views but that would have been a whole day-trip in itself that we hadn’t planned for so we just walked along the beach. But we would definitely plan it for next time if we went again!

From there we got back in our car and made our way back around to Hanalei Bay, one of the most famous beaches in Hawaii! As we were coming around the coast we snapped this photo of the St. Regis Princeville Resort which is apparently where all the celebrities stay!

From $579 per night and the most beautiful view of Hanalei Bay, it’s no wonder this resort is reserved for the elite Winking smile

Anyway we arrived very soon at Hanalei and it was beautiful. Our pictures don’t do it justice because it was kind of overcast but from one angle you have the beautiful ocean and then from the other angle you have mountains behind you!

Hanalei was the best beach I have ever been on for swimming. But there were a few beginner surfers out on their boards at certain points as well. It was really nice and sandy and although there were a lot of people around there was also a lot of room on the beach as well.

Simon loved Hanalei too! The actual town was really cool. It had a hippy vibe to it with nice coffee, what looked like good food and some cute little shops as well! We didn’t get any photos of the actual town but the other attraction of Hanalei was on the other side of the highway to the beach… The Taro farms…

Taro is apparently a native crop to Kauai that is the oldest farmed crop on Hawaii. I’m not sure what it’s used for but it’s farmed in this way similar to rice paddies.

While we were there this man was sitting (literally on the side of the highway) playing a Hawaiian style recorder/flute thingamee. It sounded great and he was selling some as well (you might be able to see them on the ground in front of him).

I must mention that Kauai has one of the wettest places on earth right in the middle of the island! But you have to get a helicopter to go see it. Sadly that didn’t quite fit into our budget but as we were driving along the coast we could see the magnificent mountains in the background everywhere we went and one of the longest falling waterfalls in the world!

We didn’t get any photos ourselves coz we were in the car the whole time but here’s a profesh photo to give you an idea…

(Waipoo Falls)

Later that night after we had dinner we went to Historic Hanapepe town (which was West of our resort). This was the home of the Disney animated film Lilo and Stich.

They had some night markets which were a lot of fun!

The next day we had to leave Kauai and it’s marvellous roosters! One thing I regret from our time on Kauai was not getting some kind of rooster/chicken related souveneir… Oh well next time. We would really really really recommend making a trip to Kauai if you ever get to Hawaii!