We flew out of Hilo and to the island of Kauai, with a stop in Maui. It was the first time either of us had been to Kauai, the Garden Island, and the most laid back of the Hawaiian Islands. We stayed at Kailua Plantation in Poipu, in a condo. It didn't have air conditioning and we found out that A/C was limited on Kauai since all of the electric power comes from a diesel power plant.
We drove up to Hanalei and Haena on the north end of the island. The first picture is of the town of Princeville from the water and the second is close to Haena:
Here is a large farm by Hanalei and some pictographs in a cave in the area:
We stopped at Kilauea Point National Wildlife Refuge on the way back from Haena. Here are some seabirds on a rock and a nene, the state bird:
The nene is a goose that is endangered. It is less endangered on Kauai since there are no mongoose, but they are still protected. There were signs to not disturb or chase the birds or let your children do so. This little girl didn't listen and both her father and a ranger were heading to stop her while this picture was taken:
Just after this picture was taken the nene turned and honked at the girl, which scared her and she went to her father crying. The ranger stopped and smiled, the nene had taken care of itself. Here is another nene showing the leg band and some more of the wildlife refuge:
The weather was clear (and cold for Hawaii, we had to close the windows at night in the condo) so we drove Waimea Canyon. Here are four pictures of the canyon:
There are lots of chickens running wild on Kauai, they crow at all hours of the day and night. Most got loose during Hurricane Ineki and had chicks. Many are not your normal domestic chicken, they are jungle fowl from the Polynesians and have yellow legs. I couldn't get very close to them:
It was a rare day, you could see down the sea from up top. Not many people can get these views of the Na Pali Coast from the top of the Waimea Canyon road:
We learned they were expecting frost at the top of the canyon that night, I said it was cold.
Here is a picture of the Spouting Horn, which was close to our condo:
