Kauai - The Garden Island

Our last on-tour flight took us to the oldest of the Hawaiian islands - Kauai. And this would be our longest stop with three days at the Sheraton and three more, celebrating Norm's birthday, at the Grand Hyatt.

Flying over Honolulu - Diamond Head from the air

Honolulu's oceanside

As usual, we started off on a tour as soon as we left the airport. This time, we headed out toward Waimea Canyon, which Mark Twain dubbed 'the Grand Canyon of the Pacific' without even having seen it based on a description he heard. In order to get there, we drove the only main road around the south and west part of the island, stopping at the Spouting Horn on the way.

Spouting Horn is a small lava tunnel right at the water's edge. It sounds like a dragon's breath when the water rushes in underneath and then spews out the top.

Once we reached the canyon, we realized that it was in fact very similar to the Grand Canyon on the mainland, except shorter, not quite as deep and a lot greener!

A stand at the Waimea Lookout with all kinds of local fruit

On the way to the hotel, which, of course was most of the way back around the same road, we also visited the Kauai Coffee Company. We had already purchased some coffee beans at the Kona Coffee Farm, since it is a non-profit, so this was more a tasting stop than anything else.

Should this go up on facebook?

At the Sheraton Kauai Resort, we got settled into our rooms and then went out to find lunch. There was a small plaza nearby that had a reasonably good restaurant, on the opposite side of another resort but Randy had told us we could walk through their gardens to get there. 'The gardens' turned out to be a very lovely collection of orchids that is even written up in the local tour guide books. Of course, there have to be some pictures:

Gardens at the Sheraton

Fish ponds with huge Koi were at every
resort we visited.

The Moir Gardens at Kiahuna Plantation
Resort

There is so much more to show on this small island that we'll leave the rest for the next post.