Hawaiian Vacation - Tuesday, December 8, 2009

Our second day in Kauai we would drive from Nawiliwili to Wailua. There is an old hotel along the beachfront highway that is closed to the public except for specially requested tours. The name is Coco Palms. This is where they filmed the Elvis Presley movie 'Blue Hawaii'.

We drove past this spot and up the mountain. We came to a special place and the bus drive pulled over to the side of road. The bus driver explained this was a sacred spot to Hawaiian's many years ago. It is called Holo-Holo-Ku. It would be called a heiau meaning a sacred spot or temple. The part in the picture below was the birthing rock. A king would take a young bride. When it was time for her to give birth she was placed on this rock. If the child born was male, his umbilical cord was cut and shoved into a crack in the rock face above the birthing rock. During the night, if a rat came and ate the cord, the male child was deemed not a prince and was executed. If a rat did not eat the cord, the male child was to be a prince and the next king.

We continued our drive up this mountain to the Opeakaa Falls. The name means 'rolling shrimp'. They were beautiful, much more than the little picture I'm showing you below. In the background you can see a mountain covered with clouds on it's top. This is Mt. Waialeale. This mountain gets over 400 inches of rain each year. The water run off from this mountain helps fill the river we will ride on later to get to Fern Grotto.

Across the highway from the falls in an overlook. You can see the convergence of the Wailua River and the Maunakapu River. When we take the boat ride to Fern Grotto it will be up the big river seen in this picture which is the Wailua River.

As we walked back to our bus I went to the end of the parking lot for the Opeakaa Falls where you could see down the mountain to the town of Wailua and then the Pacific Ocean. Again there were more purple bougainvillea. But there were also chickens and roosters. Our bus driver would explain to us that there were 65,000 permanent residents in Kauai. And there were 75,000 free range chickens roaming the island of Kauai. When some people settled in Kauai they brought fighting chickens. Eventually this practiced was outlawed and the chickens were set free. Then a hurricane came across the island and spread the chickens around. Now they all just roam free. My question was...if they are 'free' range chickens and belong to no one, can you decide you want chicken for dinner and just catch and dress one for your meal? Never got an answer. Some of those chickens and roosters had the most beautiful colors of feathers I have ever seen.

Then our tour bus took us back down the mountain and over to the Wailua River. The Smith Company has a boat service to Fern Grotto. We boarded one of their boats and up the river we traveled.

Can you imagine having this beautiful white home on top of this mountain? Below was the Wailua River and out to one side would be the Pacific Ocean. All this lush green foliage. It was just gorgeous.

Our little boat took us down the river passing people boating the river in canoes. Very pleasant ride. We got to the dock and then had to hike back to the falls. There is a really nice paved path and lots of great plants and flowers along the way. Here are a few...

a white Bird of Paradise like flower,

a Chenielle flower a Banana Tree with a bunch of bananas and a bright pink banana blossom hanging down from the bunch of bananas (we saw a blossom while in Costa Rica but had not seen one hanging from the tree before), and a Red Ginger blossom (These were prolific and came in red and pink. They are not the kind of ginger you use as a spice in cooking),

Then we came to the actual Fern Grotto. They have built a really nice large deck for you to stand on to see. This protects the vegetation around. If you several years ago, there was a path built along the edge of the rock face of the mountain to the Grotto and you could actually walk the ledge path and then into the Grotto. There they would sing the 'Hawaiian Wedding Song'. However, a storm came and washed out the path and some of the Grotto was damaged. The path was never repaired and it is totally grown over. Had they not pointed this feature out to us we would never have known it was once there. The storm also blew down and broke off many of the ferns. They are now growing back. They used to be up to 15 feet long hanging from the rock face of the cliff. Now they may be up to 5 feet long. No matter, they were still beautiful. Below I have a close up picture where you can see the opening of the Grotto with ferns hanging around it and some of the vegetation growing in front. Then I have a picture showing the Grotto at the bottom and the rock face with the ferns.

After just standing on the decking and observing the beauty of this place, a guide told us the story of the Ali'i (royalty) that once occupied this area. This Fern Grotto was a sacred place to them and they have found bones in the cave where Ali'i were buried. Then the guide was joined by two other gentlemen and they sang 'The Hawaiian Wedding Song' to us while we stood on the deck. It was just beautiful. While they were singing a man crouched over and tried to sneek behind them, then he stood up and smiled and opened his arms as if he were touching the singers on their shoulders. A camera flashed in the background, the man crouched back down and quickly tried to sneek away. We all just chuckled at the silliness of mankind. These 3 men would accompany us on our boat ride back to the dock to catch our tour bus. All the ride back they would sing Hawaiian songs and a beautiful lady would perform hula dances to many of their songs.

On the way back we were serenaded with some of those free range chickens and roosters. We're all walking back down the return path and looking at the trees and plants when we hear and rooster crow. Then another tried to top him. Then the chickens joined in the chorus. Everyone was laughing and chuckling all the way back to the boat. I don't think anyone in our tour group was expecting chickens and roosters to be one of our strongest memories of Kauai.

A plant I took a picture of on the way back to the boat was the 'Traveler's Palm'. It is a unique kind of palm shaped like a fan. Water would collected in the base of the branches.

As we got to the boat I verbally noted a crab I saw on top of our boat and wondered if it were alive. It was missing a claw. Turns out the boats crew was standing counting the people and watching to see who noticed the crab they added just before we started to board. After my commenting on the crab so Claude would see it, I heard one of them say, "That was number 3!" The boat was easily half full at that point.

Here is a picture of the inside of the boat, the 3 guys singing and the hula dancer dancing. One of these guys was a regular on Hawaii Five-O and the oldest was in the Elvis movie 'Blue Hawaii'.

On the trip back I got the better picture of this little harbor. You can rent canoes here. In the foreground are some people paddling their canoe up the Wailua River.

This bridge is over the Wailua River where it joins the Pacific Ocean which is in the background of this picture.

We had a little bit of extra time before we had to be back to the ship. Our bus driver drove us past the airport at Lihue. There is a place you can see out into the Pacific Ocean. Then turn around and see the mountains of Kauai. Here is the Pacific Ocean at Lihue.

Then it was back to the Pride of American in Nawiliwili. Our ship would depart at 2pm and head to Kona on the Big Island of Hawaii. The lighthouse was in the Nawiliwili harbor.

Claude and I would don our swim outfits and head to the pool. Sandi would enjoy a bit of time in the sun and Claude would find a spot in the shade close by to read a book. Claude would cool us off with soda pop. Then when I finished my sun time we would have virgin Pina Coladas. This is the life!!!