One Week In The Sunshine

February 3-8, 2013

While travel to Hawaii isn’t new to us, this trip is a bit different than others. Our first week will be spent at our “home” resort of Lawai Beach on the south side of Kauai. Our second week will be on the north shore in an area called Princeville, a part of the island we haven’t spent much time exploring. And no matter how smooth the ride or how much extra leg room, vacant seats or great movies there are, it’s still a very long plane ride. All together, we flew 14 hours in 3 different planes.

This first week has been quiet which is the way I like a vacation to begin. We have driven as far west as we can to Polihale Beach, revisited old friends like Spouting Horn, Wialua Falls and Opaekaa Falls and quaint villages named Waimea, Koloa and Hanapepe.

We have experienced two different food trucks, one serving Mexican and the other Hawaiian food. This is Carl’s new thing after having watched The Great American Food Truck Race for the last three years. They both served okay food but neither of these dining experiences left me wanting to revisit.

We stopped by a local Farmer’s market in Koloa on Monday. This was a new experience too. The rules were even more strict than the market held in Littleton, NH. The crowds began gathering at 11:30 but were held until exactly 11:55 when the throng of shoppers were led to the vendors in one large group so no one had an extra advantage. No sales were allowed before 12:00. The place was mobbed, some vendors sold out in the first 10 minutes and I found myself holding my breath for fear of fender benders or parking lot rage due to the shortage of open spaces. We also noticed the produce went for higher prices than the local super market. We paid $7.00 for a pineapple and found them priced at $6.00 at the Big Save.

Our last new experience centered around Kilohana, an old plantation home turned pricey tourist restaurant who offer train rides through what used to be cane fields and walking tours among their beautiful gardens. We have done the train ride but their new endeavor, started only 3 years ago, is the Koloa Rum Company. Our host, Jason offered a small tutorial on how to make rum and for those of us over the age of 21, the tasting began with their non-alcoholic Mai tai mix. To this we added what was left of our samples of the white, dark and golden rums tasted by themselves. This made a perfect Mai tai  although I’m not a huge fan of straight rum, I can tell you that I did enjoy the mixed cocktail. There will be a coconut rum joining the “family” soon.

With only one sunset under our belt and no sunrises, I’m feeling a bit of a failure as a photographer. So with that in mind I’ve decided to book a tour with a company that caters to photographers for next week. I know we’ve been to Kauai several times and driven to all of the locations the tourists know about. This tour will take us to the more out of the way unmarked beaches, panoramic overlooks and even waterfalls that have no names.

We departed Lawai Beach a day early to make the most of our north side experience.