Starting My Kauai Vacation

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Happy hour menu at Lava Lava. No Happy hour today because of Mother’s Day. Sorry, sideways again the menu was long.

 

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Ahi Nachos and Loaded Tots.

 

[taterhed]

Yum! bring me some.....uh, nevermind. :<

 

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It’s a little overcast and drizzling today. We had some rain last night. So I hooked up our FireTV. It worked before but since they upgraded the WiFi here at the Pono Kai, it works just like at home. Last year I had to use the hotspot on my phone. Now I don’t have to keep reconnecting the WiFi after no activity. Next year I will bring my Tap and I can have my music on the lanai.

DW made reservations to tour the Grove Farm tomorrow. Wednesday we’re are going to try and go to the Turtle Sanctuary. We’re going to take a ride south today and then maybe take a walk down the coastal path and go to Sam’s for Lunch or Happy Hour. Sam’s wasn’t open on our last trip, they had a fire just before Christmas.

 

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We ended out taking the walk to the turtle sanctuary. Afterward we ended up at Merriman’s for Happy Hour, Mushroom Pizza and Kalua Pork quesadillas and Mai Tai and a Cool Breeze or something like that. It had tecquila, lemonade and was infused with cucumber. This pizza was a Magharita Pizza. OK so we had two.

 

[DeniseM]

Hi Jeff - Tell us more about the Turtle Sanctuary walk.

 

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Hi Jeff - Tell us more about the Turtle Sanctuary walk.

Yep, we’re still out. I’ll post some pictures when I get back.

 

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We got back a little bit ago. I wasn’t watching my gas gage and had to fill up in Poipu, $3.85 a gallon now.

When we stopped at Merriman’s that was actually the first time we have ever been to that whole place, The Shops at Kukui Ula. It’s amazing after this many years and trips, some of the common places we just never stop at. Anyway, it was much larger than I thought it was going to be and it was nice walking around in there. We stopped at Lampert’s too. We were too early for the upstairs Happy Hour so we stayed downstairs at the Pizza part of it and the Happy Hour has a few drinks and 25% off the whole food menu, 3:30 to 5:30.

Then we stopped at The Living Food store. They usually have Sugar loaf Pineapple but they didn’t have any either. DW checked the farms website and they said they weren’t affected by the flood but they are behind on orders by two to three weeks. That could be why I can’t find them in stores. You can’t buy them at the farm without taking the tour and DW doesn’t want want to do the tour. So probably none this trip.

 

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I figured I would start a new post on the Turtle Sanctuary/Makauwahi Cave hike. Many of you probably know about this but if you haven’t been there and I miss something or if you have any questions just let me know.

Basically if you drive like your going to Shipwreck Beach, instead of turning into the Beach parking, keep going straight the road will turn into a dirt/rock/sand road. It’s Kind of a washboard like the road to Polihale but not that bad. We had a car and made it fine. Goes about a mile and a half or two miles. Then you have to get out and walk. The whole walk would be a mile but it is up and down some hills. DW has bad ankles but went slow and did fine.

They have tours on Wednesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday at 10am and 2pm. So there was no one working there when we were there today. Years ago I watched on YouTube and there is a small entrance to the cave you could go through but now they have a locked gate on it so we couldn’t get in but we got pictures from the top looking in.

The Turtle Sanctuary is just about a city block from the cave over a foot bridge over some type of water inlet. There is also a Beach further down the path. We have never went to the beach. It looks nice and that’s the beach where you can take a horse back ride on from the stable that you will pass driving in. The turtles are tortoises. We went over in that area but DW didn’t want to stay too long so no tortoise pictures, sorry.

I’ll try to caption the pictures below.

Here’s part of the road going in.

This is where we started walking from. With a better vehicle you could probably go further. There are a couple of signs and arrows. It’s not too hard to find, I’ve done it a few times.

Here’s part of the walking path starting to go down. It will take you to the beach too.

One of the signs.

Another sign on the trail.

 

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I’ll continue in this post. Sometimes when I put in too many pictures in one post it takes longer to load.

This is the actual lookout above the cave. The entrance to the cave is way to the right of this picture on the other side of the wall. So when you go through the entrance, you come into what you see here in the picture.

This picture should have been before the first one. This is the sign you will come across when you get to the cave so you can look in.

The next few pictures are all going to be from that lookout looking down into the cave. Just different directions and angles.

This is still looking down from the overlook but this is where you would come out if you go through the small entrance I will show coming up.

 

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Here’s a picture of the path leading down to the entrance. It will also take you to the beach.

Sign by the entrance.

The entrance. Tall people will have to crawl, shorter people maybe able to squat and go through.

Don’t know if the gate shows in the picture.

This is the path going toward the cave entrance. Behind me is the foot bridge going over to the Turtle Sanctuary. No pictures that area. I thought I had snapped some but I guess not.

There are a few places there to get a pamphlet that has some information on it. It also has points of interest that are marked with numbers on wooden posts. You can also get one or see it at.

www.cavereserve.org

 

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I hope I didn’t confuse anyone with this. It’s hard to go back and explain from the pictures. Also, The tours are free if you want to go when someone is there. The Turtles are huge and they are really cool. We had seen them before. I really just wanted to see if the flood affected the area. From what I can see it looked more just like wear and tear than anything.

If anyone has any questions from my rambling, I’ll be happy to try and answer.

And if anyone else has been there Please add anything I forgot.

Part of the pamphlet. It opens up with 18 points of interest.

 

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Bad news of the night, all my growlers are empty and I forget to put them in the car when we went through Lihue.
I’ll have to make another trip tomorrow.

 

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I finally stopped by the historic site on the corner when you turn to go to Poipu Beach Park. I love stopping at these to check them out and get a few pictures. This one was really cool the way the whole thing was layed out. Poipu Beach Park was the crowdedest I’ve ever seen it. That’s why I stopped at the site, parking was backed up half way up to the corner and of course all the lots where full.

This last one tells where everything was, the houses, fish pond, taro field, a spring, really cool to see how it was all planned out.

 

[taterhed]

Been down there....never know about the turtle (tortoise) sanctuary. Will look next time!

Thanks

 

[easyrider]

Thanks for the pictures Jeff. We stayed at the Pono Kai a couple of years ago and really enjoyed the place.

Bill

 

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Thanks for the pictures Jeff. We stayed at the Pono Kai a couple of years ago and really enjoyed the place.

Bill

I’m really starting to appreciate the double doors in the bathroom of the remodel. Certainly don’t mind losing the one closet. Being able to open that bathroom up when showering is a great feature. We ran the A/C one night in the bedroom and DW got cold and we haven’t run it since. Great weather this trip.

A little rainy yesterday but sunny down in Poipu. Great sunny morning here today.

 

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We don’t have access right now to our older pictures of the turtles at the Sanctuary but here is an internet link to someone’s who has been there.

https://www.tripadvisor.ca/Location..._ulepu_Heritage_Trail-Poipu_Kauai_Hawaii.html

 

[DeniseM]

Hi Jeff - If you start the trail at the Hyatt, is the turn off to the turtle sanctuary marked?

 

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Hi Jeff - If you start the trail at the Hyatt, is the turn off to the turtle sanctuary marked?

That I couldn’t tell you. We have never gone that way.

 

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Our SunSail Cabana making it’s debut on Kealia Beach. We’ve taken it it most others but not Kealia.

Best beach day in a long time. We stayed four hours. So relaxing and the time flew.

 

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It was another beautiful day, 84 in Kapaa. We only left the beach because we were getting hungry. Kealia always has some debris on the beach but it definitely seemed like there was more because of the flood. A lot of drift wood. We came back and had some teriyaki short ribs and more Kauai Shrimp.

 

[Xan]

The two of you are having too much fun! I can’t wait until I get back next year!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

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We were just saying that this has been the best stay we've had. Weather has been great. Not too busy and just enough to keep us occupied.

Grove Farm you tour tomorrow at 10am. We picked the early tour. Then take a ride or more beach time, maybe both. Gotta fill the growlers though!

 

[SandyPGravel]

Our SunSail Cabana making it’s debut on Kealia Beach. We’ve taken it it most others but not Kealia.

Best beach day in a long time. We stayed four hours. So relaxing and the time flew.

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I remember you saying you store some items on Kauai, is the cabana one of them? I'm curious how travel friendly it is? Looks like it would be a great addition to my St. John gear, but we don't have storage on St. John so we would have to take it with each time.

Thanx!