Kauai (part5)

Near Hanapepe, on the western side of Kauai, is Salt Pond Beach Park, named after the traditional Hawaiian sea salt production in pools, located near the beach. For generations, Hawaiian families have evaporated seawater in the pans dug out of the red soil here to produce natural sea salt during the summer months.

You can find the reddish Hawaiian sea salt for sale in some shops. I still have some in my kitchen, bought before I even knew about Salt Pond Beach.

On our way back we stopped at the Kauai Soto Zen Temple Zenshuji, a Buddhist Temple in Hanapepe. When Japanese workers were brought to Hawaii to work in the sugar cane fields, they brought their Buddhist religion and many temples were built throughout the islands.

Although Kauai is only 26 miles across and 21 miles from north to south Kauai owns one of Hawaii's natural wonders, the Waimea Canyon. The canyon measures 10 miles long, 1 mile wide and 3500 feet deep and when Mark Twain visited the canyon he referred to it as the 'Grand Cayon of the Pacific'.

Deep down in the valley runs not the Waimea River, but the Poomau River, which is Kauais longest river.

Following the main road, the Waimea Canyon Drive, we could hike along trails, or just wonder about the majestic views one has from the numerous lookout. One day is certainly not enough to explore of all the canyon's beauty.

The Waipoo Falls can be seen from the road:

The Kalalau lookout is the highest elevation most people reach in Kaua‘i by road, about 4,000 feet high and it's also one of the greatest views you can ever have, Na Pali. The Na Pali coast featured in several movies like the original King Kong movie, Jurassic park and so on. Understandably, it's just so beautiful.

Kauai (part 4)

A bit further south of the Waimea River, where it joins the sea, is another complex of heiau. The Hikinaakala is one of them. It served as a place to worship the sun. It was constructed around 1300 and served as a refuge for people who had broken kapu (taboo).

Not far from it, close to the shore is huge rock with several motifs. This is a very eye-catching one, pecked and incised, and therefore post-contact:

We also visited the Kauai Coffee Company. Starting as a sugar plantation, it diversified after it was bought form the Kauai Coffee Company and after the hurricane Iniki destroyed most of the crop they decided to concentrate on coffee. Since 1996 it has been the biggest coffee producer of all the Hawaiian islands.

So you can visit, walk through the coffe garden with different coffe plants, gaze at old coffee roasting machines and try out different coffees, with or without addes flavours. But to be honest I like the Kona coffee much much more.

There are also lovely flowers in their garden like this Bougainvillea:


Quick! What colour are the flowers of the Bougainvilleas? You are probably wrong ;). I'll tell you at end.

I then wanted to find some rock art, but the book I have is horrible. The guy that wrote it was never there and just cited sources from the 30s and 50s. He gave me a really hard time. We didn't find the rock art, however, we landed at Glass Beach. The beach is in the middle of an industrial zone with petroleum tanks etc. So not a nice place to swim, the current is so strong here that you would probably be smashed at the rocky shore anyway. Besides, it was used over long times as the garbage desposal area. But exactly this is what makes it so interesting. Smashed glass bottles and containers were shredded and roundes by the sea, which looks like this:




On close look you can see green and brown 'sea glass', but also rarer colours like blue and aquamarine:

http://www.thehawaiitraveler.com/2008/06/sea-glass-by-the-seashore-kauais-glass-beach/

The area was quite interesting, too. It looked a bit creepy:

And some people are still offering at the cliffs, like this offer consisting of three animal skulls:



PS the flower is white, have a close look. The colourful ones are bracts (Hochblätter wie beim Weihnachtsstern).

Kauai (part 2)

Today it's all about flowers and our trip to ferngrotto.

Hawaii harbours the most fantastic flowering plants, well, in least imho. I don't know the name of this shrub/tree but it's beautiful in its simplicity...I think. We took a ride with the Kauai plantation train, that's where I took this and the next pics.

This is the map of the ride, you are passing a lot of different fruits and veggies that are cultivated on Kauai today.

Now look at this one, the fruit is growing right out of the trunk:

We stopped so you can feed pigs and goats and we could see piglets, only a couple of days old. Cute, aren't they?

Since 1946 the Smith family brought tourists up the Waimea river to Fern grotto. They started with a rowing boat but today it's a very touristy amusement boat. Nevertheless we enjoyed our trip up the Waimea river, wich is the only navigable river in all Hawaii. This is the pier from which we left for our tour to Fern Grotto.

The hurricane Iniki devastated the Fern Grotto in 1992 and the fern has still to reclaim all of the grotto:

I think it's still beautiful and a lot of wedding ceremonies are held here in fromt of the lava grotto.

Since there was no hiding in front of the grotto we had to get over and done with the musical outpourings of the Smith family:

On our way back we met more of Hawaii's beautiful flora. I wish I had payed more attention in my botany modules, because I hardly know these wonderful flowers.

And more:

and bananas:

and somtething yellow:

Kauai is also called the garden island, and justifiably so.