We started a new trip yesterday. It got off to a bumpy start, literally, since we felt a relatively strong earthquake at 2:37am the night before we left. No damage, but strong enough to wake us up, and since we had an early flight and had to leave for the airport at 5:30am, we didn’t have a good sleep. Fortunately the flights were uneventful and we landed in Kaua’i, Hawaii early Thursday afternoon. It seemed surprisingly busy for a Thursday, but we got our rental car and got checked into our place in Kapaa. We were both exhausted so we had a late lunch/early dinner and then got some supplies from a grocery store and retired early for the evening.
Friday morning we left with the plan to see Waimea canyon. On the way we saw a sign for a farm tour and Yanmei suggested we stop there first. The place had a train tour, and we started talking to a guy who had been coming to Hawaii for 35 years and he recommended the train + nature hike, so we booked the last two available tickets for that. They had a full size train that ran around their 105 acre farm. After seeing some banana, avocado and citrus trees, we stopped at the animal pasture and got off the train.
We got to feed the animals a bit. Then we went on a hike down a valley into a tropical forest area. The valley had previously used up until the ’70s as a nursery for houseplants, but it had been fallow for about 40 years. Some of the houseplants thrived in the wonderful climate and there were giant versions of them around, like philodendrons covering 30 foot tall trees and stuff like that. It was somewhat interesting, but we both found the pace a little too slow. We finished the valley hike and had a short picnic lunch.
Then we started the second part of the tour through the orchard. This part Yanmei liked the best since we could pick and eat whatever we liked. Since it was winter it was mostly citrus fruit that was in season. We had several types of oranges, star fruit and rambutan.
We saw some Hawaiian Stilt birds, which are endangered. The guide said there are only about 1000 of them left. There are 4 of them in the above picture.
Then we were supposed to hop back on the train to return to the entrance, but Yanmei asked if we could walk back, and the guide agreed, so we separated from the tour and wandered around. Our secret mission was to get some avocados and bananas.
Mission accomplished! We had a pretty funny scene of me trying to lift Yanmei up so we could reach more bananas, as I could barely reach the bottom one in the picture above. We were actually successful in that too and got a few more. The avocados weren’t ripe enough though.
We finally made our way back to the main entrance. We’d already postponed our plans for Waimea when we decided on the 4 hour tour, so we headed to Poipu beach and looked around there for a bit before heading to the Friday farmers market. That ended up being a bit of a bust as there were only about 6-7 booths, even smaller than the Kincardine farmers market. I guess we’re spoiled in California.