Kauai Part 2

Our second day on the Garden Island started off with a kayak trip on the Wailua River.

It was lovely and overcast when we started.

I kept finding these lovely red hibiscus floating in the river and collected them into our canoe.

I realized that all the ones on the bushes along the shore were yellow...and that there were no yellow ones in the water.  I asked our guide if they changed color as they aged.

She said they are called the 24 hour flower and yes, when they bloom they are yellow and then turn orange/red throughout the day and then fall from the bush.

 After 45 minutes or so of paddling we pulled up along the bank to start our hike to Secret Falls.

There were only about 6 kayaks in our group but as you can see, there are several different companies that offer the same tour and it was pretty crowded and tight finding a place to "park".

(can you spot the two chickens climbing on the kayaks?)

our cute guide Stephanie taking a picture...

 The night before, while we were driving back to our hotel, we had noticed a very pungent smell and smelled it again here in the rainforest.  We asked our guide what it was and she thought we were probably smelling the ginger plants.

She pointed out a few different types along the way.  I had no idea there were so many varieties of ginger.

 Andy's looking at a vine here...it doesn't look like it would, but that thing swayed when you pushed it.

I collected flowers along the way...

After hiking for 20 minutes or so it started to rain!

We thought we would get drizzled on for a few minutes and then the sun would come out again.

Boy were we wrong!  We were poured upon!

It just kept coming down to the point that our guide wondered if we should turn back because of concerns of flash floods etc.  We met some other groups coming back from the falls and Stephanie consulted with them and they decided we were still safe.  She was up for continuing as long as we were.  I was glad the rest of our group were not pansies :)

A Walking Tree

We finally made it to Secret Falls.

We were already so completely drenched that most didn't even see the point of going into the water.

A few of us did though :)

The plan had been to stop and eat lunch at the falls but instead we enjoyed the view for a few minutes, swam around a bit and then headed back as it continued to rain down.

It was a really lovely spot, chickens and all, and I for one, was super happy that we got soaked to the bone with rain.

A tidbit that Stephanie shared with us as we hiked was that there are more than 200 words in the Hawaiian language for "rain".  How awesome is that?!?!

Different words for different types.

I seriously love that!

As we hiked back it did start to let up a bit and as we kayaked back we almost completely dried off...until the last 5 minutes when it started to rain again :)

Once we made it back to the marina we ate our sandwiches and shooed away the chickens...they'll steal your food if you're not careful.

We booked our tour through Kayak Kauai....absolutely no complaints...they were great!

After lunch we decided to drive down to the south shore.  We stopped by The Spouting Horn.

Andy wanted me to get a picture of this sign in the parking lot...he thought it was pretty funny...

An "autograph tree" outside of Spouting Horn

Before even making it to the Spouting Horn you had to walk through a bunch of souvenir booths.  Admittedly, we spent more time looking through these than actually checking out the Spouting Horn.

We found lots of perfect gifts for our loved ones there.

Spouting Horn was a bit of a disappointment.  We probably went at the wrong time of day because it was pretty mild and didn't show off too much for us.

On our way back through the souvenir booths we ran into our Utah Helicopter friends from the day before.  They had just come from a farmer's market in Po'ipu and highly recommended it.

So we headed over.

It was such a pleasant evening.  We enjoyed looking at art and local produce.

We bought some Lychee which we had heard so much about and wanted to try.  We also bought a white sugarloaf pineapple.

I fell in love with these flowers...aren't they gorgeous?

One of the booths was taking the sugarloaf pineapples and juicing them.  They came out very frothy and whipped.

I ate one and it was very tasty but then my throat reacted which was weird because I didn't think I was allergic to pineapple.

We ate dinner at Bubba's Burgers while we enjoyed the breeze and the live music.

This woman was making leis...

Here is our pineapple and lychee.

They're funny little fruit that are white and juicy on the inside with an almost eyeball like texture.

I couldn't decide if I liked them or not...just kind of interesting.

We were trying to get to a beach all day and it kept getting pushed aside but we finally made it to one in Po'ipu, again, after sunset so it was a bit chilly but we were able to enjoy the water...

(a sweet lady offered to take our picture and gave me her lei.  She said she was leaving the next day and wasn't going to take it with her.)

...and the sea turtles!

We then enjoyed a stormy ride back to the East shore and that concluded our second day on the island.