Relaxing around the Resort

The lazy river and three associated hot tubs of the Waipouli Resort are contained within the courtyard formed by eight building segments, and our unit was the most southerly of the complex, unit G, which first overlooks a wide grassy area frequently filled with various birds, then the sea. We were on the second floor. Unit G is four stories, as are most of the complex, but Unit H, which is turned 90 degrees from ours, has what appears to be a penthouse 2-story unit in very close proximity to the sea.  Our unit recently was sold, and is the only unit in G that does not have screen doors on the sliding glass doors of the living room.  

Although present on the bedrooms, there were none on the two living room sliders--which made bird entry a common thing as these doors would routinely be open for the gentle trade winds.  Although fully air conditioned if wanted, we wished to feel the trade winds and just used ceiling fans the whole time we stayed.  Bird chasing was a frequent past-time.

It also did not have the third bed as promised, and so on arrival, the wonderful  man finishing up the laundry from the last visitors brought us what was essentially a temporary rollaway bed which served us during our stay.  Liz and I shared one room, and Laura had the other.   

We visited the lazy river frequently during our stay, but really enjoyed the resort amenities for the last few days of our stay in Kauai.  The lazy river is cool, about sea water temperature, but is lovely to play in, especially when the sun is out, and for me was the only place to be when it is really warm.  A dozen or more brown anole lizards hang out along the river walk in the grassy/lava rock areas, and it is always fun to watch them do their pushups and flash their orange throat pouch.  Laura would search the tidepool area just off the beach, and saw many fish and sea live invertebrates.  A monk seal apparently often sleeps on the beach, although we did not observe him the times we went to the beach.

The hot tubs (two for adults over 16 and one allowing kids) were splendid, and we used them every day, often multiple times.  Their temperature seemed to vary a lot, and sometimes were very warm (max temperature was supposed to be 104--way too warm for me!), and others just around 96-97, which was quite pleasant. The landscaping around the pool and tubs gives a wonderful jungle feel, with beautiful hibiscus and other flowers.

 

Lydgate, Grove Farm, Waimea Canyon and Lighthouse

 

We spent the day on January 25 at Lydgate Park, always a lovely place to enjoy the water and aquatic life in a safe snorkeling/swimming area.  It is just as well we chose that day, because two days later a dead 56-foot-long, 120,000-pound endangered sperm whale washed on the shore of Lydgate Beach.  Ceremonial customs and public safety prompted closure of the park, which as of January 30th still is closed.  Meanwhile the University of Hawai'i Health and Stranding Lab have began a preliminary investigation into the whale's death.

We also re-visited Grove Farm outside of Lihue, so Laura could see some of the island history.   The German immigrant, Hermann A. Widemann (1822–1899), started one of the first sugar plantations in Hawaii in 1854.  Removing a large grove of kukui trees, Wildeman began his home and farm, which then was called the Grove Farm.

Widemann leased Grove Farm to his farm manager George Norton Wilcox (1839–1933) in November 1864, and moved to Honolulu to work in the capital as a Supreme Court judge. Wilcox would later buy the plantation,  where it remained in his family for over 100 years. He built the lovely buildings, and also engineered an irrigation system to bring water from the mountains to the lower elevations to change his arid farm into a thriving sugar plantation. The tour (donated $20/person to the non-profit restoring this portion of the Farm) takes about 2.5 hours and is quite informative and entertaining.  Bill was our tour docent, and he was very knowledgeable.

Friday the 27th found us traveling to Waimea Canyon.  This vast eroded canyon rises from the sea at Waimea and up to over 4000 feet at its highest lookout point. Sweeping views back to the sea at Waimea, many lovely waterfalls, followed by other majestic views down to the southern sea filled the day. 

(Laura's image back to toward Waimea)

(Laura's image of waterfalls)

On Saturday the 28th, we visited the Kilauea Lighthouse followed by a drive through Princeville to locate the nesting Albatrosses on Kaweonui Road.  This was a birding day, and thoroughly lovely!  

Lighthouse images:

Laura also saw whales off the Lighthouse, and caught several tail slaps, including this one, likely a juvenile.

Then, the Princeville Albatrosses:

Allerton and McBryde National Tropical Botanical Gardens

 

On Tuesday, January 24th, we visited two more of the three National Tropical Botanical Gardens on Kauai--Allerton and McBryde. As with Limahuli, advance reservations were required, and we drove leisurely over from Kapa'a to nearly Poipu, where the gardens can be found adjacent to the sea. 

No visit to Kaua'i is complete without including these lovely national tropical gardens.  The Allerton and McBryde gardens in the Lawa’i valley have a complex history interwoven with the colonization of the Hawaiian islands, and commercial sugar cane agricultural operations.  The site in the Lawa’i Valley was granted to James Young Kanehoa, the son of John Young, an advisor to Hawaii’s King Kamehameha I, in 1848. Kanehoa subsequently willed a third of the land to his niece, Queen Emma and she received the rest of it in 1885 from Kanehoa’s widow, Hikoni. Queen Emma first visited the Lawa’i valley on a tour of the kingdom with her husband Liholiho, King Kamehameha IV but eventually returned to live in the valley after the death of her husband and young son.  Her neighbors included the McBryde family, who grew sugar cane and ultimately leased the Lawa’i Valley from Queen Emma, who reserved for herself the cottage and surrounding land. They purchased the property outright from her estate in 1886. The upper valley was intensively cultivated in sugar cane, while taro and rice were grown in the lower portion by tenant farmers. In 1899 the lower valley was conveyed to Alexander McBryde. 

Mouth of Lawai'i Stream

McBryde added to Queen Emma’s plantings of rose apples, Alexandrian laurel, mangoes, bamboo, pandanus, ferns, and bougainvillea by planting palms, gingers, plumerias, and ferns in gardens along the beach. Then, in 1938 McBryde sold the property to Robert Allerton. Allerton was an avid art collector and patron, and also was intrigued by landscape architecture of formal gardens and settings for statues, which he pursued first at “The Farms” in Monticello, Illinois. It was in Illinois that Allerton met John Gregg, a young architectural student at the University of Illinois, The Allertons visited Kaua’i and the lower portion of the Lawa’i Valley, and subsequently purchased  the property, moving into a new home in the valley designed by John Gregg. 

Robert Allerton and John Gregg immediately began designing and laying out the gardens, continuing to include exotic plants as Alexander McBryde had done earlier. They enlarged the gardens with plants they collected in Southeast Asia and the Pacific and introduced classic statuary which they collected.  

Cocoa (unripe)

Lipstick Bamboo

In the 1960s Robert Allerton joined with a group of organizations and individuals committed to establishing a tropical botanical garden for the United States. Together they petitioned Congress and in 1964, the last year of Robert Allerton’s life, the charter was granted to establish the Pacific Tropical Botanical Garden. When he died, the Allerton Garden Trust held the land and part of the conditions for the Trust was that only guided tours (no self-guided) could occur on the Allerton Gardens. Robert also left an outright monetary gift to the Trust, which made it possible the purchase of land adjacent to the Allerton Garden, which became known as the McBryde Garden, which can include self-guided tours. The National Tropical Botanical Garden formally assumed management of the Allerton Garden for the Allerton Gardens Trust in the early 1990s.

Visiting the gardens allows you to see where famous scenes from Jurassic Park and other movies were filmed, as well as observe wildlife throughout the gardens. such as the frogs in the old coal storage area and herons along the valley stream.

Lihue and Kauai Plantation Train Area

 

The train ride at Lihue at Kauai Plantation Railway gives a peek into the sugar mill history of Kauai. Once, diesel-powered narrow gauge rail lines moved tons of sugar cane from the fields all over the island to mills where the can would be processed into sugar.  Now, only remnants of the rail lines can be seen as pedestrian bridges over streams and at the Kauai Plantation Railway, where you can ride in a reproduction of King Kalakaua's personal railway car around a small looping track that takes riders past small plots of fruits and vegetables grown on the current plantation and used in the historic adjacent Gaylord's restaurant. The location is the site of Gaylord Wilcox's home when he operated Grove Farm Plantation, a 23,000 acre sugar plantation.  

Grove Farm is also worthy of the donated $20/person tour--operated by a non-profit that is maintaining the historic home and gardens off Nawiliwili Road.  In a few more days we will be there, and I'll tell you all about it then!

Explorations & R&R

 

These large Giant African Snails are not native to Hawaii, but like many invasive species were introduced by 20th century people -- this type as garden ornamental and to be eaten.  It is the largest land snail in Hawaii, reaching lengths of 8 inches.  Laura took this photo on the Stone Dam walk, but we saw more around our resort the following day. It is considered an invasive pest, eating tender green growth.  Apparently edible, they however host a parasitic nematode called the rat lungworm which can travel to the brain and cause eosinophilic meningitis--best not to touch, but if eaten, cook well...

Our third full day on Saturday, Jan 21st, was spent in exploring the nearby area--checking out Lydgate, going up the Waialua River, visiting the rainbow eucalyptus, taking images of the many chickens, and relaxing at the resort.  

The weather hasn't been cooperating (we were poured on at Limahuli, and it was overcast Friday, and Saturday threatened rain as well).  Note the grey skies at Lydgate:

We decided Lydgate would be good for a day visit and soaking at mid-week, and planned to come back.

(Waialua River bend)

 We also dined for the first time at the Oasis--very good as always.

  

Limahuli on Thursday and Stone Dam walk on Friday

 

It was overcast and raining on Thursday when we visited Limahuli, part of the National Tropical Botanical Gardens.  We all brought light ponchos with us, but forgot to put them in so we bought three more at the visitor center. Still, it had several downpours and we were pretty soaked by the end of the walk, but it was worth it as always.  Laura enjoyed it immensely.  

Laura particularly enjoyed the one-lane bridges to Hanalei and beyond, particularly one where a bay horse hung out, his head and neck stretched over the highway guard rail as he hoped slowly passing vehicles might pause and give him a treat. 

After our walk, we lunched in Hanalei at the burger place mid-town on the corner--always good. On the way back, we stopped at the overlook for the wildlife refuge for another beautiful view:

The next day, Lizzie was determined to find the walk that she and Helen had done (without me as I had the flu) two trips ago, and Laura was pretty sure she had located the trailhead.  It turned into a 5+ mile round trip, but it was a beautiful walk, if hot--we could have used the rain this day! 

The trail wound through a planted forest; the start is shown above.  We noticed monarch butterflies--some quite pale or dingy-winged, but some very bright.  The caterpillar I spied (below) also seemed smaller, but perhaps it is a juvenile.

I couldn't photograph one of the butterflies, but Laura captured it very well:

Once we reached the stone dam, I sat at the overlook and enjoyed the beauty of the flowers around me and the distant view to the dam, where I photographed Laura returning.

It made me wonder whether there fish in Hawaii's streams.  Apparently, rainbow trout were introduced once, but they had to be be repeatedly added as they could not reproduce in the warm water. Endemic freshwater fish of Hawaii include striped mullet and Hawaiian flagtail. 

Hawaii 2023: Laura's Sabbatical "Arrival"

 We flew out of San Francisco on HA 11 around 7:40 AM on January 18th, 2023, to land first in Honolulu where we switched to an inter-island flight on Hawaiian Airlines to land in Lihue, Kauai.  The flight was uneventful and easy, but renting our car, which had been reserved by Laura for several months, was more of a challenge.  Enterprise rent-a-car did not have the SUV Laura hoped, and wanted to give us a large minivan, but finally we spotted a Jeep compass, which has turned out to be perfect.

Soon we were off to the Waipouli Resort in Kapa'a, with its lovely lazy river and great beachfront unit, No. G206.  Yellow, red, salmon pink, and pale pink hibiscus are blooming thickly around the resort, Brown Anoles basking in the sun along the rocky edges are plentiful. These lizards are originally native to Cuba and the Bahamas and are believed to have been transported to Hawaii as  a stowaway on some plants or via the pet trade, and were first seen in 1980 on Oahu.  Now they are abundant and can be found in Hawaii on Kauai, Oahu, Maui, and the Big Island.  Males have a red-orange flap on their throat called a dewlap that can be extended to attract a mate or display against a rival, and it is fun to watch them do push-ups and extend their dewlaps around the rocky edge of the lazy river.  Birds are plentiful with ubiquitous chickens as well as mynas, golden plovers, and hunting egrets:

Our first morning was overcast, giving the blurry sunrise, pictured above.  Our first full day, Thursday, has us off to Limahuli National Botanical Gardens past Hanalei.  Exploring up the hillside of Limahuli is always a wonderful visit.  Although it is raining, it is warm.