Return to Kauai

I'm back on Kauai for the first time in five years.  This is a long absence for me; I can count at least 13 visits here since 1980, and I've probably missed a couple.  I always tell people that if I could live anywhere, but had to stay there forever, I''d live on Kauai...specifically on the north shore.  But the rest of the island is fine, too.  I'm currently on the south shore, in Poipu, in an absolute oceanfront condo.  This is a famous rock at the east end of Shipwreck Beach, near my place.  Daring people jump off it all the time.  The young woman here provides a sense of scale.  Her boyfriend/husband/significant other has just made the leap, and a few seconds after I snapped the picture, the wahine also made a successful descent.

Green vegetation, red rock, blue sea.  I took a picture very similar to this in June...on Prince Edward Island!  PEI and Kauai are seven time zones and 25 degrees of latitude apart, but the scenery features similar colors!

Limahuli/Gillins Beach.  A couple miles east of Poipu.  In 2000 I easily hiked here from Shipwreck.  I made it this time too, but it was much harder.  Age takes its toll.  Also, after the perpetual cool of Monterey, I wasn't acclimated to the heat and humidity of Kauai in my first full day on the island.  But it was a beautiful trek nonetheless.

This sunset pic was taken from the patio of my condo.  Not shabby. 

Being September, the south swell from Antarctica and New Zealand is running, bashing the rocks in front of my condo.  This pic was also taken from my patio.

Spouting Horn, a couple miles west of my condo.  The water rises into the air with a whooosh!

Now I'm in Hanapepe Town, crossing a swinging bridge.

Kauai is famous...or notorious...for its chickens.  They run loose all over the island.  The roosters, like this fellow here, aren't much good at keeping time...they crow all day and most of the night. 

From the mid 1800s to the late 1900s, Kauai was a big sugar producing island.  But alas, cane farming became uneconomical...I think it's done mostly in the third world now...and the sugar mills here have all closed.  This big one is in Kekaha.  I remember when it was still operable in the 1980s.

Kauai is only 555 square miles in area but has a massive canyon!  Waimea Canyon is close to 3000 feet deep, about half the depth of the Grand Canyon.  The rocks and vegetation constantly change hues as clouds pass by.  I was up here once when the weather was showery, and my friends and I observed a continuous rainbow for the better part of an hour.  Although we've had some showers today, this is the latter part of the dry season here, and I couldn't find any waterfalls in the canyon.  During wet periods there are several. 

The canyon with an ohia tree on the right.

A classic shot of Kalalau Valley from the lookout, four thousand feet above.  The ocean in the distance.  In the 1980s I backpacked into the valley three times along the Na Pali Coast.  11 miles and 2500 feet elevation gain/loss each way.  That was 30 years and 60 pounds ago, alas.  It's beautiful in the valley.  You can hike to pristine pools in the jungle.  Went skinny dipping with a Danish girl there one time. 

The Kalalau lookout is near Mount Waialeale, one of the world's wettest spots.  Waialeale is apparently getting drier...the average rainfall has decreased from 450 inches a year to a mere 393.  It's still a misty, mystical area, though.  This is not at the mountain, but at the start of the Pihea trail, which leads to the Alakai swamp on the slopes of the mountain.  Last hiked the Alakai in 2000. 

A pretty flower near the Pihea trailhead.

These unprepossessing fellows are zebra doves.  Though they're not striking to look at, they to me are the sound of Hawaii.  They hang out all over, and coo in a medium loud, staccato, melliflous manner that is somehow relaxing.  I'll be watching a show on TV and hear the doves, and I visualize the warm, soft air of Hawaii that I love. 

A fine rooster at Koke'e State Park in the mountains.  At about 3500 feet, it's perpetually spring here.  Imported redwoods grow.

And a last shot of the Waimea Canyon.