Kauai - Part 1

December 24, 2013

This was a family trip with the King’s Mom, Dad and Uncle John. We’re teachers so can only travel at specific times, so we were there at Christmas. This happens to be a very expensive time to travel… but we’re worth it, right?

Although we had many stopovers on our flight, Victoria>Seattle>Portland and then finally Lihue (pronounced li-hue-ee) the flight on Alaska Air was relatively easy. I love using our yearly companion fare to come to Hawaii!

When we arrived we picked up our rental car (definitely get it by bidding on priceline… way cheaper then just booking it!) and were easily able to find our condo in Poipu. We printed out directions from google maps, but they are so detailed they actually make it seem more complicated than it is.

We headed down to see if the family had arrived yet, but their place was deserted. We decided to keep walking down towards the beach and discovered Brennecke’s Beach Broiler. We were starving and the food was good. Not the fanciest restaurant I’ve ever eaten in, but certainly good. The view is what makes this place what it is. It is an open-air restaurant directly across the street from Poipu Beach Park. We had our first (but not last) slushy girly drinks (mango dacquiri and a lava flow) and enjoyed our fish. We had to laugh because my fish and chips were called “Grandma size” (the smaller portion), but it was more than enough for me!

Afterwards we finally found the family and settled in for our first night of wine, sunsets, relaxing and hanging out.

Sunset from the balcony on our first night in Kauai

The next day was also pretty relaxed. We headed out to get some groceries. I recommend going to Lihue. You should either shop at Costco or the place across the street in the mall (I’m not sure what the name is, but you can see it form Costco). They seemed to have the best prices. It really isn’t far to drive from Poipu… maybe 15 minutes and you get to go through the tree tunnel on the way! We also found the Kmart at the mall good for getting things like cheap snorkel and mask sets.

Later, we checked out the beaches that were close to our apartment. The closest one was called Brennecke Beach. This is where people go to boogie board. There is a nice sandy beach for those of us who would rather watch. You can also go in the water here and turtles swim right around in the water with you. Big turtles! It was amazing! The next beach is at Poipu Beach Park. There is a large grassy area with shady trees and a crescent shaped sandy beach. The water is shallow inside the crescent and excellent for snorkeling on the other side of the sandbar… when you are there you will know what I mean.

In an effort to “see something”. We decided to take a little drive down to the Spouting Horn. It was mentioned in every guide book I saw (My favourite guidebook by the way was Kauai Revealed. Someone loaned me a copy, and there was one in my condo when I got there so it would seem other people besides me like it too!)

The Spouting Horn!

What the books and websites didn’t mention is that you should try to go at high tide (well this is purely speculation on my part that high tide would make it more interesting) because the spouting horn was definitely water shooting up through a hole… but that’s it… The view from here was spectacular, however, and the trip was not wasted because we got some beautiful photos.

This is where a nice man told us why there are roosters everywhere on Kauai. He said that when the hurricane happened (which one I don’t know) that all the chickens and roosters were set free because the wind destroyed the pens. People weren’t able to collect them again, and now they multiply freely and are really everywhere! Conveniently for me I didn’t hear any from my condo, but have heard stories about people being awoken at the crack of dawn each day by roosters.

After such a long and tiring day we thought we deserved another slushy drink at Brenneckes and luckily for us it was happy hour! 

Later that night we did our regular wine, sunset, bbq and hang out. This is definitely shaping up to be a perfect beach holiday 😀