Anniversary Day! Trip Day 4

Today, we celebrate being married for 35 years! My husband definitely knows how to make me cry...  He gave me this wonderful anniversary gift:

I had noticed the advertisements for this ring, but didn't think he had!

We had a luau scheduled for later in the evening, so we had most of the day to do some more sightseeing and look for more geocaches. We stopped by for the shops at the Kilohana Plantation and ended up taking the train tour!

While we were waiting to board, I spotted this little bird on the train.

 Had to get a selfie on the train, of course!

 This little guy in front of us spent most of his trip paying attention to us instead of the scenery, but every once in awhile, something would catch his eye!

CHICKENS!! (I told you they were everywhere!)

The plantation had a lot of things growing! Some of them I have never heard of, but a few I recognized! The coconuts were everywhere. In fact, the east shore of Kauai is known as the Coconut Coast.

  Doug's favorite (and mine) was the apple banana! We would buy them and just have them with us to snack on!

 This is one of the Taro Ponds on the plantation. Have you ever tried poi? Well, they say it's an acquired taste! I did learn that it is usually better when mixed with something. Our tour guide said he eats his poi with Doritos! hmmmm, I don't think I'll be trying that one!

Kauai was known for it's sugar plantations. Though it isn't the main crop anymore, tourist are, there are still some sugar cane to be seen.

We also saw some pineapple fields. Did you know it takes 2 years for a pineapple to ripen? Not sure I'm that patient!

About half way through our trip, the train makes a stop so we can stretch our legs. Although this wasn't exactly a "petting zoo", the passengers could feed the animals. There were goats, pigs and horses. 

 This little pig was interested in what I was doing!

 I wasn't exactly sure what this was but thought it was interesting. (If someone that reads this knows, please let me know! ;))

 These are the Hawaiian Christmas trees! They are extremely tall! It is hard to get a picture that shows the scope.

 At the end of this blog, I will post pictures of all the hibiscus flowers we saw. (that way you don't have to scroll through them if you don't want to)

After our train ride, we decided to go find some geocaches! I love the places geocaching takes us! We pull up in a parking lot and this tree was waiting to have it's picture taken!

We make our way down to a small cove to find the cache. It was very beautiful with the waves, but it was windy!

 Across the cove, we spotted a lighthouse. We would end up at this one a little later.

I spotted another one of these beautiful birds on our way to the next cache. (I learned later it is a red-crested cardinal).

If it wasn't for caching, we probably would not have passed seeing this lighthouse. It isn't a tourist attraction.

Now it's time to head back to the hotel to get ready for the luau! I didn't take my camera so that I could just enjoy the luau. We went to Smith's Family Garden Luau. It is all put on by the family!

On our way to the luau site, we get a tram ride around the garden! One of the other attendees spotted this very patriotic colored rooster!

Now, for all the different hibiscus we saw today!

Stay tuned for the next day's adventure! We come back to the gardens during the day!

Anniversary Trip Day 3

We had arranged for a helicopter tour with the concierge at the hotel. He also told us of a little known place to check out after we were back from our flight. Since we weren't scheduled to go until that afternoon, we decided to get in a little more sight seeing. We also decided to see if we couldn't find somewhere local to eat.  We had a somewhat overcast morning, but we were granted this glimpse of the sun as we started on our way.

What we found was this little restaurant that was given 4.4 stars or we may not have gone in! Waipouli Deli & Restaurant is located in a little strip mall. It didn't look like much from the outside and when we stepped inside, we had to make sure it was the right place! It definitely had quite a few people there! We suspected a lot of them were locals, which is exactly what we are looking for!
We were greeted and seated almost immediately! We looked over the menu and made our decisions. I ordered a side of portuguese sausage to go with my pancake. It was more than enough food! The sausage was awesome!! Needless to say, we enjoyed the food!
We decide to go see the other waterfall in the area, Wailua Falls.

It was a very quick trip to the falls and not much else to see, so we decided to look at our handy "Blue Book" to see what else would be close enough to go see that wouldn't put us in a bind, time wise, to get back in time for our helicopter tour. What we came up with was Spouting Horn, on the south side of the island (only 36 minutes away. Spouting Horn has a very colorful history! To read more on this spot, visit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spouting_Horn

The picture I took isn't the actual hole that is called Spouting Horn. It is to the left of the spout you see. Part of the story involves a previous plantation owner didn't like the damage that the salt spray did to his nearby cane fields so he had the whole widen so the spray wouldn't carry as far.
We had spotted a botanical garden on the way to Spouting Horn and decided to stop back in to check it out. They did tours to a couple of locations but we didn't have time for either of them so we wandered the grounds for a bit.

 They had a section of garden that was mostly "farm" crops.
I did manage to capture one of the local residents though!

 I found out later that this is bread fruit!
Needless to say, there were tons of flowers (I'm only posting a few...)!

 

And another resident of the gardens.

We stopped in a little town on the way to the heliport, Old Koloa Town, and went through some of the shops there. I spotted this tree by one of the shops.

It was time to head to our appointment for our helicopter tour. Did I mention it was windy? It was very windy. We checked in at Blue Hawaiian Helicopters and waited, and waited, and waited. Finally, one of the employees had to come tell us that the we could still go up, however, it would probably not be enjoyable! (she was joking) They had us reschedule for later that week.  Sooooo, we made our way down to the place the concierge told us about below the heliport.
We end up at the Ahukini State Recreational Pier.

The pier was built in 1890 to ferry freight and passengers to and from larger boats that would anchor offshore. Later, a breakwater was built so the boats could dock directly to the island. If you would like to know more about it's history, please visit this website: http://thegardenisland.com/news/island-history/article_1c2ef89d-b0c9-5e0c-b98c-43ea02a08ad4.html
The pier is currently closed for repairs, but the surrounding areas are open. It is said to be good fishing here!

I mentioned the wind before? You can hear the wind in this video. I was watching a couple of sea turtles in the bay and shot a short video. The small speck you see bobbing up and down is a turtle. 

Not sure what type of bird this was, but he was hunting through some of the tide pools.

 

And just a couple of pictures of my favorite fella!