May 7, 2012 - Day 9 Disney Wonder IN Kauai

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Sorry couldn't put photos in order again... Photo Bucket sucks.

Here is today's scanned Personal Navigator and Shopping Map for Kauai.

We were up early again for 7:30am all ashore. Clay was up very early and got a load of washing done this morning! We had breakfast out on the back deck of BBB again. We were scheduled to pick up a rental car at 8am. The documents said they didn't start the pier shuttle until 8am. They actually came about 10 of 8am. We got our car at 8:07am.

A quick look at today's Drive Guide Map and a query at the desk showed we could do east, south and west of this smallest inhabited Hawaiian Island.

Since we started at Lihue Airport, we went first to Opaekaa Falls. We found a couple of heiaus along the way. Very interesting.

Then to Wailua Falls.

Then we drove south and west to the Spouting Horn. It was a great blowhole and an interesting shore area past a small snorkeling beach and a botanical garden. We enjoyed watching a half dozen or so big green sea turtles in the adjoining inlets. I bought a small orchid stem and wooden basket. We could have spent a lot more time there watching the water and the turtles. It was beautiful. But, lunch called.

Months ago we learned about Puka Dogs. At this point, I don't remember where we first heard about them, online, in print or on TV. We were close to Poipu Shopping Center where Puka Dogs is located, so today we had a plan for lunch and as we drove by Koloa Shave Ice on the way down,  we have a dessert plan too. We shopped at Whalers General Store and Clay got a $12.99 t-shirt. I got a Hawaii mug at Starbucks there and used their restroom. There is also a Roy's.

We got our Puka Dogs here! Great! Puka means hole in Hawaiian. They poke a hole in a soft white small loaf of bread. They impale the bread on a toasting spike. They put garlic mayo, lilikoi mustard and a relish of your choice (or not) plus a gas-grilled Polish Sausage into the toasted hole and you're ready. (Lilikoi is passion fruit and it reminded me of honey mustard.) They were about $6 each and Clay had to have a $15 t-shirt from there. It came with a free lemonade. They were making each lemonade to order, squeezing the lemons in front of us. The whole place was tiny, so basically the entire operation was performed in front of us. It was fascinating as well as delicious. (I should note that we enjoyed these so much, we have been attempting to replicate them at home. We find that a 1" metal curling iron with the grip/clip removed works just fine!) This place, like Sam Sato's is a don't miss for real Hawaiian food experiences!

We did stop at Koloa Shave Ice on our way back to the main highway west. It was a disappointment. The ice grains were larger than anything we had to date in Hawaii and the flavors did not go all the way through. Also, they came with weird little tiny spoons instead of a regular sized spoon. Clay got his with macadamia nut ice cream on the bottom this time, he thought he ordered chocolate macadamia nut ice cream and was disappointed when he got down there and found vanilla macadamia nut ice cream. It was a nice quiet and convenient setting, but it was disappointing compared to the others we had on this trip.

We drove west across the southern end of the island for Waimea Canyon. It is known as the Grand Canyon of the Pacific and it is! We passed a coffee plantation and miles and miles of sugar cane fields. The speed limits kept fluctuating but averaged about 35mph. So, it takes a while! We stopped at the Captain Cook Memorial. We seem to have followed in his footsteps around the world over, but he was killed in Hawaii over the nails in a longboat! The statue here is a replica of one in Whitby, England where Mom was last summer.

The Waimea Canyon was very impressive. Glad we went. It was a roller coaster ride of a road up there! Around one corner we found a surreal red landscape with a white frothing stream and little waterfalls running through it. I can't believe I didn't bring my binoculars today! There were beautiful strange birds at the first waterfall and goats in the canyon, but we couldn't get a good look at them! The Waimea Canyon Drive is not for the faint of heart or motion sick prone. It was a thrill ride! We did not go the last 7 miles or so.

On the way back, we stopped at Kauai Coffee Plantation. It was impressive. We drove through miles of coffee trees. Admission was free and it took about 20 minutes to walk through a self-guided tour of the plantation and coffee growing, and harvesting processes. We went in the Visitor's Center and bought a couple bags of coffee, one was $8.50 and the other was $14 for whole beans. I have been drinking the $8.50 for 10oz. regular grind and I quite like it. The other was Poipu Estate Medium Roast whole beans  10oz. as a gift for Mom. Hope she likes it. I didn't realize when buying them that they were 2 different coffees! I just thought one was ground and one was whole.

We turned in the car at 3:50pm. It was a Ford Focus today. It was $40.33 for the day plus $12.65 for 2.636 gallons at $4.77/gallon.

I think Kauai might be my favorite Hawaiian island. On the shuttle ride home, we learned from other passengers that every Hilo Hattie's store had different merchandise! We're so disappointed that we only went to the first one! Of course, we spent more than enough there and that was why we didn't go to the others. But, in hindsight, since we drove by the ones on Honolulu and here for sure with time to spare on the return to the airport, we wished we had stopped.

We were back onboard in time to shower before dinner. Dinner was in Animator's Palate and the menu was Mai e'ai (Come and eat). Clay had duck quesadillas and lamb followed by ice cream. I had soup and a steak followed by chocolate mousse.

We went to the WDT show which was comedy and ventriloquism of Ronn Lucas. It was funny, but we were expecting more big production shows by Disney.

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