Visiting the Garden Isle: Day 4 – Hiking and Beaching Again
After our big outing the day before, we slept in a bit the
next day as we needed some extra R and R.
Although we planned to participate in the sunrise yoga class on the same
golf course where we did the sunset tour a few days prior, events conspired to
make us miss the adventure. In the
middle of the night, I awoke due to some stomach troubles and ended up ejecting
most of my dinner into the appropriate bathroom receptacle. We initially blamed this on a small bout of
food poisoning (particularly as we not charitably included toward our meal of
the night before at Keoki’s), but events over the next few days made us
reconsider this a bit (ooh, foreshadowing!
It’s like I’m a real writer).
Anywhoo, we eventually dragged ourselves out of bed and ate
breakfast at our hotel’s restaurant, Nanea.
One of the cool options at the Westin was their program called, “You
Tidy, We Treat.” Although there were
some stipulations (such as having to arrange this the day prior), each day that
you declined maid service, you received a voucher for one free breakfast
buffet. Chris partook in the buffet this
morning, and I had a pork eggs benedict; both were quite good. While the buffet wasn’t super extensive, it
did have a custom omelet station, and even more exciting egg options:
The Southern girl in
me always loves a deviled egg
Since the storm clouds were gathering on the north shore…
The view from our
balcony
…we decided to head southeasterly to the drier side of the
island. Although yoga didn’t happen, we
still wanted to do a hike and since breakfast seemed to be sitting well, we
headed to a neighborhood in Wailua that contained the parking lot for the
Nounou East trailhead. Nounou is
commonly known as “Sleeping Giant” in Kaua’i, as the mountain looks like a
giant who conked out and is peacefully slumbering away. There are several trails that run over
different parts of the mountain, but this one seemed most appropriate for us on
this particular day.
Getting geared up to hike
Unlike our hike on the coast a few days prior, this mountain
was completely inland; while this made it warmer, sunnier, and drier than the
coastal hike, it gave us the advantage of having great views off both sides of
the trail.
From the neighborhoods of Wailua to the ocean
Sitting pretty on my bench
Looking north toward
our hotel
Even though the trail wasn’t as forested as on the Na Pali
coast, we still saw our fair share of wildlife – chickens (shocking, I know), a
few donkeys (heard rather than seen), and this big dude:
Duck, honey!
After about 45 minutes of hiking, we hit the saddle area
where a bunch of other trails joined together.
This was our turnaround point for the morning, and on the way back down,
we grabbed a few more shots of the island:
Found a breezy spot!
The coast toward
Waimea
Overall, we hiked right around 3 miles, and it took us 1 ½ hours. The base of the mountain was just higher than
sea level (300 feet or so), and we topped out at 1500 feet; as you can see from
the elevation chart below, the hike was pretty much straight up for 1.5 miles
and then straight back down the same way:
Yup, looks like a
mountain
After we arrived back at the car, I once again used the
Undress to change into my bathing suit while Chris put on flip flops (already
attired in his board shorts, per normal), and we headed into Kapaa for
lunch. Kapaa is a really touristy area
of Kaua’i, and the traffic can be somewhat gnarly (you know, on the one road
that runs through town). Our initial
lunch location, the Holo Holo Paniolo Grill, was closed for cleaning for the
day, so we wandered across the main drag to another local establishment, the
Olympic Café. According to their
website, they specialize in Hawaiian, Greek, and Mexican food, which sounds
like a terrifying blend, but everything was fine; Chris had fish tacos while I
enjoyed a blackened chicken wrap, and all of the food was serviceable. The highlight of lunch was that our booth overlooked the main drag of town, so we got to watch the world go by from the open air second floor.
Post lunch, we visited a nearby ABC Store for canned beer,
and then we hit the beach – Kealia Beach to be exact. Although the sky was cloudy, it was still a
lovely temperature, and we relaxed for a bit, napping and drinking beer.
Check out the sweet hiking dirt lines around my ankles.
Muy caliente.
Eventually, the storm clouds really started gathering and we
packed up, heading back to our side of the island. We stopped for some shopping and frozen
treats in the Foodland center in Princeville; Chris hit up Lappert’s again for
ice cream, but I had something else in mind: shaved iced!
Me with some guava, pineapple, cherry goodness!
By the way, this was the small.
Before leaving, we also shopped a bit, and Chris found himself a new aloha shirt to wear to the luau the next evening. We headed back to the hotel for pool time, then to our room
to rest up and slowly change and dress for dinner (also to run another load of
laundry – why not, right?). While we
sitting on our balcony watching the clouds and reading (and drinking beer), we
had a friendly visitor.
Well, hello there!
Eventually, we decided food was in order, and we headed back
to Hanalei town again to try out the Dolphin, a local venue that came highly recommended
(both by our hotel and by Yelp. Man, I
love Yelp). We waited just a few moments
at the bar, but our table was rapidly ready.
The Dolphin’s specialty is seafood (no shock there) as well as sushi,
and since we hadn’t dined on the latter in a while, we went for it. All of our rolls were outstanding, and the
toro (tuna belly) nigiri was divine.
Our centerpiece at the
Dolphin
We headed back to the hotel feeling happy and full, ready
for our final full day on the island!
In the next post, we head out on the road again, hitting a
few more tourist highlights before we must head home.
Later!
Amy
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