Enjoying a Garden, a Lighthouse, and Hanalei Beach

Thursday we were ready to travel north again to Hanalei. After being thwarted on Tuesday, we now knew when the highway would be open. We had everything timed out, and we were ready to go.

Our first stop of the day was the Na ‘Aina Kai Botanical Gardens (Lands by the Sea). Like many gardens, this one began as a private garden. Joyce and Ed Doty moved to Kauai in the late 1970’s and began to create a garden. As interest grew, they eventually handed the garden over to a non-profit and opened it to the public in 2000. Besides the public garden they also have worked to grow tropical hardwoods.

While the garden has many plants, it also has many bronze statues throughout the garden. These tend to be of a whimsical nature rather than something abstract or modern. They often portray children who are interacting in the various settings of the garden. While the statues are cute and playful, they weren’t something I was all that excited to see.

Na ‘Aina Kai has a number of elements to it. Toward the beginning of the tour there is a large pond with a fountain in it. Around the edge of the pond are a number of interesting plants and flowers. There is also a Japanese tea house one can peer into near the pond.

From there one can walk to an area that is set up like a maze, but there didn’t seem to be any way out so it was a bit strange. The house was nearby, an herb garden, and a man made waterfall into a small pond. Of course there were flowers throughout. I found the orchids especially interesting as they seemed to just grow wherever they want to. In various locations around Na ‘Aina Kai are docents who are happy to answer questions that one might have or just chat.

One of the surprising features was a succulent garden. Considering the amount of rain that falls on the island, I would not have expected that succulents would do very well in this climate, but the large cacti seemed to be doing quite well.

Na ‘Aina Kai is fairly large and has a gift shop at its entrance. Wandering around and seeing so many unusual tropical and colorful plants made for an enjoyable morning.

After about an hour and a half at Na ‘Aina Kai, we were on our way to the next stop, the Daniel K. Inouye Kīlauea Point Lighthouse. We had the required reservations so we were ready to go. Because of its location, the area offers great views of the coastline. However, the focus here is not so much on the lighthouse but on the bird population. The site is actually the Kilauea National Wildlife Refuge. On the hillside there are many birds who make this place home. The air is full of them flying around and squawking at each other.

I have to confess one of my desires was to get a decent photo of a bird flying. This was something I had yet to accomplish with my photography. I figured with so many birds flying around, I should be able to get a good shot. However, it is definitely not easy. I have a number of shots of a blank sky and others with a blurry object in the sky. I have a couple of decent ones. probably by chance. What do you think? (The Last one obviously doesn’t count)

After about 45 minutes at the lighthouse and bird sanctuary we were on our way to the beach town of Hanalei. We approached the line up of cars that were going through at 1:00. We didn’t have to wait too long, and they let us through. I was surprised at how close the town was once we got through the blocked highway.

We first stopped at a well known Hanalei church right on the main road. In fact we actually had purchased a painting of the church. Part of its charm is its unusual color, a dark green. I got some pictures, and then we drove back to the center of town and a walk to the beach.

The beach here is on a large bay. It’s a nice long beach but most of the people were around a park at the center of the bay. There were some people out trying to surf, but the waves didn’t look very high to me for it to be all that exciting. We walked around the bay to a place where they had a long walkway out to a pier with some benches on it. The roof over the pier made it a nice place to sit, relax and just enjoy the view. There was also a park at this end of the beach.

We wandered back into town and found a great little restaurant that had the best crispy French fries. After our meal I suggested we see where the road led if we traveled past Hanalei. We drove a little ways down the road and came to another area where road repairs were happening. There was a one way lane with flaggers. We drove a few miles past this section and found a nice beach. The sand here was a different color than most of the other beaches we had visited. I wanted to continue on, but it was getting late. My daughter was nervous that the flaggers would end their day, and it wouldn’t be safe to go back over the section being repaired. Reluctantly I agreed to turn around so we never made it to the end of the road.

Arriving back in Hanalei we stopped again and walked around some of the shops. They were sort of the typical tourist type shops one finds. My daughter was particularly fascinated with the waterfalls we could see in the nearby mountains. They were so tall and there were quite a few of them. I think this is the area where it rains so much, but I’m not sure.

We finally headed back towards our condo. Leaving Hanalei we didn’t have to wait long to get past the main road repair. We made a few stops on the way back to see some scenery and a rock church. It had been a good day, but we were nearing the end of our time in Kauai. The next night we would be flying home.