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If you have been following along on VaughnNet for more than a couple months, you know that Will and Kristina went to Rome in the spring. That trip didn't go so well, and left us both feeling more worn out than when we left. In an attempt to get a relaxing vacation in before the end of the year, we decided to return to our favorite Hawaiian island, Kauai. While we still didn't quite have enough time there to fully relax, we DID have time for some pretty incredible stuff. Check out this gallery for the highlights.
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Our first night on the beach, waiting for sunset.
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Sunset on Poipu Beach.
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Yes, it's real sand. None of that fake stuff here...
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Real rocks too!
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Sunrise at Poipu beach the next day. The moon was still up.
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This little guy was hanging out beside the Mariott. He was our first real wildlife spotting.
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This is one of the Monk seals that like to hang out on Poipu beach. This is the Mom seal, barking to find her pup in the surf.
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Mom and pup, sunning themselves on Poipu beach.
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We hiked about 2 miles to this beach, through the spitting rain. We were afraid it was going to be a horrible horrible beach, since all around there was nothing but rocks and pounding surf.
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Instead of rocks and pounding surf, we found this little paradise. If you look hard you can see Kristina laying out on the beach.
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After laying out on the beach for a couple hours, we took a hike to see the rim of an old volcano. Unfortunately, to get to the rim, you had to hike through THESE monsters. They covered the ground wherever you looked.
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While we did get a LITTLE closer than the picture shows, this is the best view of the rim of the volcano we got. It really wasn't all that big, or all that impressive, although one of those jagged teeth you see on the right are actually about 30 feet tall.
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The next day, we went on a snorkle cruise off the Na'pali coast. The entire north shore of Kauai is inaccessable by car, but boat and helicopter tours are available.
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Kristina gets ready for the boat tour. We had beautiful weather for most of the trip, as evidenced by the skyline.
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Not 10 minutes out of the harbor and we ran across spinner dolphins. They swam along side the boat for a while before splitting off to do their own thing.
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The spinner dolphins apparently travel in large pods, and the rule of thumb is that for every one dolphin you see on the surface, there's 3 more below.
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We also saw bottle nose dolphins as well. This might be one, might not. Too bad they didn't have lables on them.
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The dolphins liked swimming right in front of the boat, so I got lots of shots of them from fairly close up.
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More spinner dolphins, playing in the water just off the side of the boat.
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We also saw several sea turtles while we were out, although most of them were submerged. I was able to snap this shot just as this guy was coming up for a breath of fresh air.
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We saw numerous water falls while we were out on the tour. This one turned out better than most - I had some problems with haze and lens flair that ruined most of my shots.
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This is a typical beach on the Na'pali coast. There were probably 20 of these impossibly picturesque beaches along the way.
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We went snorkeling in Caves Bay (I think that's where it was) and our guide found this squid under a huge coral outcropping. After catching it, he said he was planning on eating it.
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Here's me getting sun burned and tossed around on the boat on the way back from snorkeling. Oh yeah, and some really big mountians just in the background.
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More really big mountians. The scale here just does not convey. There may or may not be a helicopter in this shot. If there was, it'd be no bigger than a spec on the side of the mountian.
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After snorkeling (see the underwater photos at the end of the gallery) we made a trek back to the "Cliffs of Insanity" a spot we stumbled on during our first trip to Kauai in the Waimea Canyon. We abused the crap out of our Jeep getting to the trail head, driving down old hunting trails that we were too chicken to try the first time we went out. This is actually one of the more tame spots we drove over - most we didn't really want to stop and get out while we were traversing for fear if we lost momentum we'd get stuck.
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And here's a sample of the view from the cliffs of insanity. Again, the scale just isn't really conveyed here. From the top of the canyon to the bottom it was easily 1500 feet, or bigger than the size of a 100 story building.
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Waterfalls off the edge of the cliffs.
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This is Will, sitting right next to a spot on the cliffs where the trail had crumbled off into oblivion. Yep, no more than 10 feet behind him, there's a 1500 foot drop off. Remember this view for when we get to the far away shot of the Cliffs of Insanity.
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Yes, it really IS the end of the trail. Step 2 feet in either direction and it's over the edge.
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This is not a chicken. Yes I know what you're thinking - really it's not a chicken. It's a Moa - a wild bird that looks pretty much like a chicken. Whatever, we called them like we saw them - CHICKEN!
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The next morning, we awoke to find this little guy sitting on the deck of our little cottage. I got a couple photos before he took off for parts unknown. While we saw lots of little lizards while we were there, they were all little and very hard to catch (both by hand, and by camera.)
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After the Cliffs of Insanity, we wanted something a little more pedestrian, so we drove around to the north east shore and hiked down to Secret Beach. The guidebook said that Secret Beach wasn't so secret anymore, but it was practically deserted for the duration we were there.
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Kristina, sunbathing on Secret Beach.
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This is the Lighthouse at Kilauea from the trail end at Secret Beach.
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And here's the Kilauea Lighthouse up close and personal. The grounds around it have been preserved as a wild sea bird sanctuary.
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This is a native Hawaiian goose, the Nene. They are an endangered species, but one of the more easily spotted of Kauai's native birds.
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This is either a red footed boobie, or an albatross. I'm not sure which.
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I have no clue what this guy is, but he's standing on the underground nests of some sea bird. The grounds surrounding the lighthouse were covered by these dirt mounds with nests in them.
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This is a Minah bird. They were all over the place - this one was spotted on the steps of our cottage.
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No, the peacock is not a native bird of Hawaii. This guy was hanging out on the grounds at the Smith's Family Luau. Other than being incredibly cheesy, crowded, and expensive, the Smith's Family Luau was great. We left half way through.
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The best part of the Luau was the guided tram tour around the Smith Family Gardens. Ok, it was cheesy too, but they had wild pigs hidden in the back. They didn't really mention them (probably since pig was on the luau menu) but we snuck back there to get a photo.
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Kauai is known as the "Garden Island" and it's easy to tell why. Everywhere you turned there were flowers blooming.
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It was all Kristina could do not to pick these and put them in her hair. We compromised and took lots of pictures instead.
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A better travel photographer would have taken note of what these falls were. I'm not that travel photographer, and really, there's plenty more of these all over the place in Kauai. I give you random waterfall picture number 60. All I know is that it was on the way to the Tunnel Hike (that we didn't go on) and the crazy Jungle Hike (that we attempted.)
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I say we only attempted the Jungle Hike because, well - this is the trail. I know, you're probably saying "that's not much of a trail" and you are right. We got covered in mud, covered in mosquitoes, and a little freaked out about getting lost since the trail was pretty well covered too.
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Just a short way into the Jungle Hike, we were rewarded though, so in a way it was worth it. This is again on a scale so big it's really not worth trying to explain. Big.
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Here's another shot, from standing in the middle of the stream. The clouds had just started pulling back and the rain held off just long enough for us to get within 1/4 mile of the car before drenching us. I've attempted some photoshop trickery to get the mountains in the back a little clearer.
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I neglected to mention that in order to GET to the jungle for the Jungle Hike, you had to drive through the jungle quite a ways. The Jeep did very well in this activity, fording several creeks, mud holes that went up to the doors, and several rather large rocks. Well, OK, we didn't ford those... This is Kristina, getting her Jeep schwerve on.
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This is Will, emerging from the Heart of Darkness. He put down his pointy stick and pigs head long enough to pose for this shot and then promptly killed and ate the photographer.
Ok, maybe he just got back in the Jeep.
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Ok, remember the "Cliffs of Insanity" and that collapsed part I mentioned a ways back. About 1/4th of the way into the picture from the right there's an eroded section. That's the bit that I alluded to earlier. It's a loooong way down...
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On our last day in Kauai, we decided to abuse the Jeep some more and drive to the worlds highest swamp, the Alakai Swamp. This swamp is not only pretty hard to get to (note the condition of the Jeep) but also has a lot of native birds in it. The following photos are Will's frustratingly inept attempts at nature photography.
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Ok, well, no birds here, but at least this flower would hold still long enough to get a decent shot. That's more than I could say for the birds.
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This is one of Kauai's native birds, the iiwi, along the swamp trail. This is the best of about 30 photos worth of leaves with a red splotch in them.
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Yes, no birds in this photo either.
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We think this was a akekee, or a small finch like bird found only in Hawaii.
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Yes, again, no birds, but I have a bee and some cool looking red flowers!
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After our hike through the swamp, we came back for one last swim on Poipu beach, and then had drinks at sunset in Brenneke's bar on the beach. Here's a shot from out the bar window.
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Last photos at sunset on the beach. *sniff* We'll probably have to go back again.
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Ok, we'll definately have to go back, mostly because Kristina promised Will that they could go on the underground tunnel hike to the magnificent waterfall cathedral pool. Funny, I didn't see any pictures of anything like that - did you?
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Will and Kristina were trying several new camera techniques on the Kauai trip, including underwater photography. We used an ewa-marine underwater camera bag with our Canon S320 to take the following pictures on our Na'pali boat tour.
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The underwater camera bag proved to technically work, keeping the camera dry in about 15 feet of water, but proved to be extremely frustrating to use. It was nearly impossible to see anything on the camera, or press any of the buttons, including the shutter release.
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In addition to the difficulties with the mechanics of using the bag, the lighting was also a problem. Murky water didn't help things either. Most photos came out very monochromatic.
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In the rare shot that actually came out looking good, often nothing was actually IN the photo since you couldn't really tell what you were shooting at. For example, the coral here looks great, but the little fishes were decidedly not the desired subject.
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Anything further than 10 feet away was not worth trying to shoot at. Perhaps a better flash and clearer water would have helped. Would we do it again? Yes, but with considerably lower expectations.
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Most of my shots of Kristina underwater turned out too murky, or included only a flipper, or a lot of bubbles, or sometimes of some other person, wearing similar clothing. This one came out suprisingly well though.
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