Continued from Friday: Friday morning at 7:20 am we took a 45-minute inter-island flight from Oahu to Kauai, where we're planning on spending the next 4 days hiking around the island. Kauai, called "The Garden Island," is another world from busy, urban Honolulu. The island's west coast, where we're staying, is especially remote and isolated. Below is a shot of Major's Bay, near where we're staying. Which I guess begs the question: why are we staying there? Well, because for $75 a night we were able to get a two-room cottage on the beach at Barking Sands U.S. Navy Pacific Missile Range Facility, another perk of Tom being retired military. Provided you don't mind staying on a working missile range facility during your vacation. The cottages at Barking Sands aren't exactly the luxurious Hale Koa (see post from 4/2/2015); but they're quite nice. Our cottage is on the left, below. The decor is cute and cozy and functional: Views from our lanai: But though our end of the island is at the opposite end of the island from Kauai's only shopping center, we are close the Waimea Canyon, also known as the Grand Canyon of the Pacific. The Waimea Canyon supposedly has many wonderful hiking trails, a few of which we hope to discover over the next four days. This is actually my second trip to Kauai, as I came here a few years ago with my sister Romaine. That time we stayed at Poipu Beach, which is the slightly more commercial resort area on the southern end of the island. And so since I know the Poipu area a little we decided to swing by there our way out to the west coast from the airport, which is located in the town of Lihue on the east coast. Our first stop at Poipu was at the Poipu Tropical Burger for breakfast. I longed to return to the Poipu Tropical Burger because during my first visit with Romaine After breakfast our next stop at Poipu Beach was the Grand Hyatt Kauai. It's actually worth a look-see. Its facade looks like that of a palace:
The rooms at the Grand Hyatt Kauai range from $440 per night for a single to $5,240 per night for a 2,463 sq. ft. suite. But anybody can walk around the grounds for free. There's a walking path leading from the Hyatt grounds to a cliff above the sea called Makahuena Point. The path offers some wonderful views of the beach and the blue, blue sea below: After our tour of the Hyatt we drove a few miles inland to visit Koloa, a historic old sugar mill town, After our visit to Koloa we drove for about 40 minutes until we reached the west coast and the Pacific Missile Range Facility. Then we checked into our cottage.
After we were settled we started thinking about dinner so we headed for Shenanigans, which is the name of the base all hands club. An all hands club is an eating facility that's open to all ranks. Back when I worked on a U.S. Army post in Germany - and it still might be that way today - the officers, non-commissioned officers and enlisted personnel each had their own restaurants where only members of their rank could go.
After dinner we returned to our cottage to sit on our lanai and watch the sunset.
And then our day, which had started at 4 am in Honolulu, was done.
4 Comments
Molina
4/5/2015 01:26:58 am
That is truly paradise!
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Romaine
4/5/2015 02:42:32 am
Looks beautiful! I bet you can see whales on the horizon too - if you look for their spouts. I think it is still the season for them.
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Patti
4/5/2015 03:42:17 am
Yes, Romaine, we have seen the whales spouting and flipping their whale-tails. It's a lovely sight. From our lanai we also have a clear view of the island of Nihau, the Forbidden Island.
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Marianne
4/5/2015 09:21:27 am
Your writing and pictures make me want to go back to HI. The view from you lanai is a million dollar site...who needs fancy hotels!
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