Tuesday January 3rd - light house morning

 Since the lighthouse wasn't open on Saturday, due to it being New Year's Eve, we had to wait until Tuesday to visit.  We ate breakfast in the room to save time, packed up our gear, and started the drive north to Kilauea Point.  We stopped at Small Town Coffee along the way to pick up a couple drinks and a muffin for Gayle's breakfast.  We arrived at the light house around 10:30, there was still a decent amount of parking available and no line at the gate, so we parked and paid our admission fee ($5.00 per adult, G was still young enough to be free) and wandered in.

Though endangered, it is not hard to find a Nene at the light house.  This fellow was hanging around the parking lot.  Clearly people hand feed them, although you are NOT SUPPOSED TO... they have no fear of people and he walked up to my camera wondering if it was food.

Behind the gift shop is a small balcony looking north, in the bushes I found another Nene attempting to take a nap.

Off in the way distance from this viewpoint we saw a pod of dolphins playing in the water.  They were very far away, this shot is taken with a 300mm and zoomed in

The larger sea birds were not soaring quite as much as they have in past visits, so I mostly played with my pinhole cameras, but kept my DSLR ready with the 300mm for the occasional passing wildlife.

When I shot this I thought I was getting more dolphins.  Turns out these were humpback whales!  This is taken with the 300, but not cropped in... they were relatively close.

White tailed tropic bird

Magnificent Frigatebird

Juvenile Frigatebird

Red-footed booby

Laysan Albatross

I love how they look like they've put on smoky eye shadow

Since I kept my DSLR ready for birds, I did not shoot any photos of the actual lighthouse with it on this visit.  Here is a shot I grabbed with my Clunky pinhole camera.

This was our warmest morning so far, and we were all sunburned and sweaty after a couple of hours of being on the relatively wind-free lighthouse point, so we decided to head back towards the condo and grab lunch along the way.  We stopped off at this pizza food truck that D had been wanting to try, conveniently located next to our favorite music store, and just 3 doors away from my favorite fabric store on the island.  

It is also very conveniently located next to G's favorite shave ice stand on the island.

Wailua Shave Ice is the only one we found that uses all fresh juices, not syrups, on their shave ice. 

G started her lunch with a Lilikoi shave ice

Together we shared a margarita pizza

and their version of the "Hawaiian" pizza... carmalized pineapple, smoked pork tenderloin, basil, and a balsamic reduction drizzled over the top.  The. Best. Hawaiian. Pizza.  Ever.

They also serve french fries, with a variety of toppings and sides to dip them in.  These were the parmesean fries.  This made up for my lack of fries with my burger the previous night, also were the best fries we've ever had on the island.  Funny to have that come from a pizza truck.

It was sunny and hot and none of us wanted to drive much anywhere, so we made the rest of the day a pool day.  They don't allow inflatable floaties in the pool, but they do supply foam pool noodles, so I borrowed a couple of those, wrapped them around my head, and kicked my way up and down the length of the pool for about 4 laps, which probably took me nearly 2 hours.  I'm not a fast swimmer.

To help explain perspective... here is a googlemaps shot of the resort.  The pool is described as a "lazy river', although it doesn't flow, but it does snake around with nooks and crannies, which makes swimming lengths of it more interesting than a big rectangle pool, and also makes you feel like you are pretty much alone in the pool wherever you are (except the slide area, where people tend to congregate)

The blue circle is where our condo is located, on the bottom floor - convenient to the pool, the beach, and the BBQ area (which we never did use this time around)

D went to the bar and ordered a couple of drinks for us, (from Oasis on the Beach, the building with the orange dot on it) which they'll serve in plastic cups so people can take them into the pool area.  He saw that our favorite waiter, Henry, would be working that night so he made a reservation for us for dinner as well, requesting Henry's section.

After quite a lot of swimming, and more than a few runs on the slide, I was exhausted and hungry.  As the sun began to reach the horizon line, we all cleaned up and got ready for dinner.  

Our dinner started with complimentary drinks.  G received a "Lava Flow" - some kind of strawberry syrup/shave ice type of drink.

D and I received shots that had elderflower vodka and hibiscus

Our drinks, my sangria (which is far less sweet than what is served elsewhere, and I liked it quite a lot)  G's fruit juice blend (which is less sweet than POG, and she didn't like it all that much) and D's beer.

Appetizers - sorry for the poor quality photo, I was hungry and didn't check it.  I had the ahi poke bruchetta, we shared the Okinawa Potato Nachos (middle square bowl) and D and G shared the calimari.

My salad, beets 5 ways... pickled, steamed, fried, some kind of beet foam, and I forget the 5th way.

My excellent dinner, Kajiki, which is a type of blue marlin, grilled and served with kabocha pumpkin puree and green beans.  (The menu said wing beans, but apparently they couldn't get ahold of any at the time so they subbed green beans)

After dinner we headed back to the room and relaxed with a movie before bed.

Monday January 2, 2017

This morning I woke up early and saw some pretty cloud patterns so I decided to grab a bit of my camera gear and head down to the beach for some sunrise photos.  I walked down the path to the northern edge of the property where a stone jetty protects a waterway, there are usually some nice exposed rocks and logs that make interesting subjects.  I found a spot, and after finding a good spot for my cup of coffee and setting up my tripod, monkeying with the settings and adding my ND filters for long exposures, I realized I left my remote control in the room.  *sigh*  I'm just not concentrating as much as I would like to be on this trip.  I was gaining light too quickly and really wanted the long exposures before the sun rose, so I just tried to keep a steady hand while depressing the shutter.

Once the sun came up, I switched to a regular polarizing filter and had some fun with the sun's reflections

We weren't sure what exactly we might end up doing this day.  The lighthouse was still closed, and we looked into a hike called the Koa Kia trail, which is a pretty flat 5 mile loop through a mahogany forest to a garden with a stone damn.  Unfortunately, according to some very recent Trip Advisor reviews, the trail was entirely socked in with mud from the recent rains and incredibly unpleasant walking.  Knowing the geography of that area, I had a feeling it wouldn't be anything but a bog, and we didn't want to slog through it.  D suggested we head north to Ke'e and see how the Kalalau trail looked.  We left all the beach stuff in the car as well, so that if the trail looked unappealing we could still try the beach.

We'd had breakfast in the room early, but got a later start getting out the door, and we were all pretty hungry right around 10:30.  Since we happened to be passing by Tiki Taco, we decided to stop in for an early lunch.

It is located in a small business looking strip mall, hard to spot if you aren't already looking for it

A lot of Dia de los Muertos artwork inside.

Chickens.  Everywhere!

This is one single taco.  They are huge... the diced fish is on the bottom, topped with cabbage, pico, and queso fresca (usually also has sour cream, but I don't like it so they left it off)  They were a little heavy on the cabbage this time, but the flavors are nice and spicy.  For fish, they serve whatever is fresh and in season, on this day it was hebi.

Further up the highway is Small Town Coffee, which has been one of our favorite coffee stops.  Besides coffee drinks, they offer a lot of baked goods for breakfast or lunch, most of them are vegan.

We drove all the way up, passing through Hanalei, and then along the meandering highway over several one-lane bridges to get to the end of the road.  We stopped off at a little shop in Wainiha for some snacks, the lady working there was incredibly friendly and we had a good long talk about allergies while we poked around at snack options and grabbed some bottled water.  Continuing along the road we arrived at the parking near Ke'e just before noon.  The place was packed, all along the road cars were pulled off here and there, even parking directly under the "No Parking Any Time" signs.  We crawled through the crowds of people hoofing it to and from their cars and wondered if this was going to work out at all... then after we hit the turn-about and started heading back we noticed a family loading stuff into a car.  We paused for just a minute, waving the cars behind us around, and the family pulled out of their spot.  We managed to park at about the 8th spot over from the trail head... you can hardly ask for better parking than that!

We geared up into our hiking boots and poles, and I lightened my camera case slightly by pulling out my larger, heavier lenses and leaving the Clunky pinhole camera behind.  That took quite  a a bit of debating on my part, but I've seen enough photos of this trail to know that I was already taking a risk with the 18 or so pounds of gear I had on me.  (In hindsight, I would have lightened it up even more, and it would have been more comfortable with my hiking/camera bag combo rather than just a heavy camera case, but that was back home on the mainland, and I had packed without knowing that we would even make an attempt at this trail, so I didn't bring it)

This is pretty much a majority of the trail... slippery red boulders at a steep incline.  There are a few places that "flatten out" on a couple of bends, and a few spots where the trail has been improved by using logs to make "stairs".  All in all, the incline is about equal to what we've seen on the Wallace Falls hike back home, though this trail is more often inclined than Wallace Falls, and also this one has a severe drop to the ocean on one side, cleverly disguised with tropical foliage. It would be nearly impossible in active rain due to the nature of the mud here, though.

Lots of warning signs at the head of the trail

Lots and lots of warning signs.

G and I on the trail, hopefully this helps illustrate the incline.  It is hard to tell, but just to my left was a cliff down to the ocean.  G wouldn't get anywhere near that side of the trail, and hugged the cliff the whole time.  She did fantastic with the technical nature of the trail, but did not enjoy the vertigo she felt from the view.

The first half mile includes this lovely switchback, D is just one turn of the switchback below me here.

We made it to the half mile mark, which the sign called the "Coast Viewpoint" - some other travelers referred to it as "windy point".  The trail curves here and this is where you can get your first glimpse of the Napali Coast.  There is a relatively wide ledge and lots of boulders for people to sit on, and it was a decently busy stopping point.  I paused to take some photos with the wide-angle pinhole, and also a few attempts at pano shots (since I lugged my tripod all the way up there, I was determined to use it!)  I'll have to stitch the panos together when I get on my bigger laptop, for now here are a few regular landscape shots.

From the viewpoint looking back and up, this was the mountain we just hiked around.  We happened to be up there at a good time as far as lighting goes.

From the viewpoint looking down... that is the beach where the trail starts - this should give you an indication of the climb... half a mile, basically straight up.

At the turning point of the trail looking down the Napali coast.  The lighting was tricky here, but I was determined to get some kind of shot of it.

This is where I sat to take that shot.  Yes, the cliff drops straight down.  I was terrified and couldn't even put my feet over the other side of the rock.

D played with his 360 camera A LOT up here, I'm having him send me the shots he edited so I can share them all on the blog later.

As we sat up there taking photos, some clouds began to move in.  Within about 10 minutes those patches of blue sky above the mountains were entirely flat gray, and the humidity began to climb.  I decided we'd gone far enough, especially for an impromptu hike, and I did not want to get caught in the rain with all that gear, so we headed back down.  Our descent was slow and steady, and we managed to get down the trail with the least amount of mud on us out of anyone we saw.  (to be fair, we were at least prepared with hiking poles and boots, and took it slow.  We saw people on that trail who had worn Birkinstocks up and were having to come down barefoot, and a lot of people just wearing gym shoes coming down with streaks of mud from where they'd slipped.  Me, I like my ankles in one piece, so I'll always haul the hiking boots out, even if the gym shoes are more padded)

Once back at the car, we decided the clouds were leaning too much towards rain to bother with the beach here, so we packed up and headed back to the condo.  G happily got out to the pool for her water time while I cleaned up our hiking gear so it could dry well enough before we'd have to pack it up.

Though we showered up, none of us felt like going to a real sit-down restaurant, and we felt we'd earned a little not-so-healthy food, so we drove down the street to Bubba's Burgers.  This is a place where you order at the counter and grab a seat where you can... it's a few steps above fast food, in my opinion, but full of casual atmosphere and energy. 

While waiting in line I noticed this posted on the wall...

That reminds me, the field from the ATV tour is also where scenes from Tropic Thunder were filmed.

There are tables inside Bubba's, but we like to sit on the bench counter/railing seats outside.

Kind of can't miss the sign while driving by.

They were out of fries ?!? - it had apparently been a record breaking weekend and they still didn't have fries by Monday night.  I couldn't eat the onion rings because of my allergies.  *sigh*  So I had my double bubba and soda, and we went to Safeway on the way back to the room to pick up some chips for me to munch on while we watched movies before bedtime.

back home safe, brief update

Aloha, I'm back home safe, and slightly disoriented because I've skipped two meals for sleep and can't tell what day it is or what time it is.  So... I'm getting some coffee and will get my "I nearly got it done before I left" update posted for the 2nd, then will get to the last couple days after I fire up the regular laptop.
But first, coffee.

January 1, 2017 - Happy New Year

I woke early enough on New Year's Day to meander down to the beach and watch the sunrise... I didn't bring my camera gear, instead I just enjoyed the view while sipping my coffee.  

We decided to head to Art Cafe Hemingway for breakfast again and I enjoyed another lovely muesli breakfast and Americano.  From there we headed back to the room to load up our beach gear and head north to Hanalei to spend some time in the sand.  I ended up also bringing by camera gear because I wasn't sure how long we'd be on the sand and whether or not some photo opportunities would present themselves.  

G and I enjoying the warm sand.

I wandered down the beach a bit to get a shot of the Napali area beyond the bay.

I spent a while watching the waves and trying to capture curls.  The beach was so busy that it was difficult to get a shot without people in it.  (there are actually about 3 surfers in this shot, diving through the wave)

After watching a bunch of people in the water, G decided she wanted to give boogie boarding a shot.  I went out into the water with her and talked about timing the waves.  She enthusiastically jumped into one wave, but after a few seconds of riding she pulled up too high on the board, the wave hit the tip and pitched it forward, and she went over and rolled.  I was next to her and helped her up, but the waves were so big she decided to call it quits with the boogie board and just stay in the chairs for a bit.  I ate my sandwich and some fruit while we dried off, then after a little more wandering we decided to head into town for lunch for G and D.  G picked Chicken in a Barrel, in the Hanalei. 

Outdoor seating around Chicken in a Barrel (the orange building)

I had some fries, G ordered chicken which comes with brown rice and chili, which she tore into with the reckless abandon of one who has tangled with the ocean waves.

After lunch we decided to head back towards the condo.  Along the way we stopped at an overlook to check out on the horizon for whales, and we found a low tide area with lots of tide pools at the bottom of the path, so - after watching the water for a long time to ensure the tide wasn't rising -  we headed down there to look around.

D and G poking around at tide pools.

G at our chairs... I parked it in a chair for a while and took shots of the waves with my zoom lens

G enjoyed watching the tiny fish zip about in the tide pools

I caught a series of waves with my zoom, this is one of my favorites.

Same vantage point, different lens

After the tide pool adventure, we got back to the room and all got into the pool for a bit.  G and I took turns on the water slide:

The pool winds around the property in a river-like way, which has lots of nooks and crannies, with benches built into a few corners, and three waterfalls.  One of the waterfalls has a cave behind it.

 After getting decently waterlogged, we cleaned up and decided to check out Art Cafe Hemingway for dinner.  

G and D... notice behind them there is a light fixture dangling from the ceiling which is made from an old camera.  The drawing of Hemingway is the large piece of art on the far wall.

They still had their Christmas decorations up... it really doesn't feel like early January when it is 76 degrees outside.

I started with their vegan green pea and ginger soup, which they serve in teacups.

D and I shared a fondue for two for dinner.  It comes with bread, and to make it a meal you can add apples, mushrooms, potatoes, or sausage... or do a combo plate of everything.  We did the combo plate.  D and I were pleasantly surprised that we both enjoyed the raw mushrooms.  We'd never thought to add them to fondue at home, but if you soak them in the cheese long enough to warm them up they are very tasty.

Dessert... chocolate fondue for G, and chocolate creme pot for D.

A quick note about feral pigs!

I think I forgot to mention this in my description of the day Friday, but on our way out of Kipu ranch we finally saw feral pigs!  We have kept our eyes peeled for them on every trip we've had, and only glimpsed one, one time, on the side of the road... which could have also been a rock or tree stump, we never really positively identified it.  On our way out of Kipu Ranch, however, we clearly spotted three feral piglets on the side of the road.  Since there was no traffic, D stopped the car and we watched them scramble up the side of the ditch and dive into the overgrowth next to the road.  It was all too fast for me to capture on film, and although one piglet stuck his face out to watch us, traffic started coming up the road and we couldn't pause long enough for me to get out and get my camera, so we moved on.  It was exciting though... now we've finally seen some of the feral pigs on the islandd!

December 31 - New Year's Eve day of wandering

December 31st was our first morning on the island without wind and rain, so we pulled our beach chairs down to the sand to enjoy the morning sunrise while sipping coffee.

These chairs are very comfortable

I didn't bring my DSLR, but I did shoot a quick pano with the point and shoot.

We decided to try a new place for breakfast.  I'd read about Art Cafe Hemingway prior to our first trip, however it was closed for remodeling the entire time we were here on the first trip.  Our second trip largely had either breakfast in the room, or breakfast at Olympic Cafe.  After I re-read the description of Art Cafe Hemingway, D decided we should give it a shot.  I appreciated that they were very detailed on their menu as to what "level" of vegetarian each menu item was (vegetarian but do not eat eggs, vegetarian eats eggs but not dairy, etc...  They even specify that their vegan stuff can be made with syrup instead of honey if you ask ahead of time.  When someone goes to this much detail on descriptions, that tells me they know every ingredient of every item)  I chose the muesli for breakfast, which was cold oats/nut mix in milk with Greek yogurt and fruit on top.   D ordered an omelette and G had a crepe.  They only have espresso drinks, no drip coffee, so I had an Americano with my breakfast.  It was wonderful.

The great irony is that I discovered a place that has "the best eggs of any restaurant anywhere" according to D.

Breakfast is so limited for me that it doesn't matter much where we go as long as they have oatmeal.  I actually picked this place for the atmosphere, there is art everywhere and they use a lot of Hemingway's recipes for drinks, which I thought was clever.  It turns out the food is also excellent.

Art Cafe Hemingway is run by a couple Friday - Sunday, then run by their son Monday - Thursday (and then called Cafe Hemingway - two restaurants, one house) ... same breakfast menu but different dinner menus.

Our intended destination today was the Kilauea Lighthouse for photos and a picnic, and then probably on to hang out in Hanalei a bit.  I packed myself a sandwich and some fruit and chips, and we backtracked to the bakery for some lunchtime croissants for D and G before heading north.
Unfortunately the light house park was closed for New Years Eve (which they did *not* mention on the website) so we had to put that off until they reopen on Tuesday.  I felt bad, because we had debated about bringing the beach chairs in the car, but I really thought we wouldn't have time to use them much so we didn't pull them out.  Since the light house was a bust we ended up with several hours of not much to do, and we could have used the chairs.  We made do without them, though, and wandered up the coast to a little beach called Kalihiwai Beach.  This is in a somewhat protected bay, though the waves were quite high.  We parked among the trees on the side of the road and made our way across the sand with our picnic and sat down to eat.  None of us felt much like getting back into the car right away, so I went back to grab my camera gear and decided to play with my pinhole cameras while D and G wandered around a bit.

Wide angle pinhole

Don't mind the lady on the beach with the nearly 100 year old camera.  Nothing to see here, that's not strange at all.

G and I on the beach

"this will be really funny, take the picture on the count of 3!" (I think this is supposed to be a Darth Vader effect)

After I burned through a bit of film, we packed it up and continued north to Hanalei Bay.  Parking was very limited, but we found a spot near the pier and meandered down.  The water seemed relatively calm and beach facilities were pretty good (bathrooms at each end of the bay and one in the center) so we put that in the back of our heads as a possible beach day destination.

We hadn't really made plans for dinner yet, so we took some time to sit on the beach and look into a few restaurant possibilities.  Many places were doing special NYE pre-determined meals (3 - 8 course meals) which are difficult if not impossible for me to participate in due to my allergies, so we settled on Gaylord's back in Lihue, since they had an opening for dinner and were serving their regular menu.  We headed south back to the condo, washed the sand off, and then continued down the highway to Gaylord's for dinner.

Their mai tais are quite lovely.

Ahi sashimi appetizer, simple and perfect.

Look... no fish!  I opted for the pork loin in the mushroom demiglaze, served with bok choy and wild rice.  The lighting was really dim so it was difficult to get a decent pic, but that pile in the middle of the plate is sauteed wild mushrooms, which were DELICIOUS.

I was happy to watch the sun set on this year.

After dinner, we stopped off at the local Safeway to pick up a few things we were running low on, then headed back to the condo.  We stayed up to watch Jurassic World and tried to spot the places we had visited the day before, toasted the end of 2016, and hit the hay.