Switching Hotels
Have dessert first - breakfast at The Right Slice
Our stay in Poipu Beach on the south shore of Kauai was great, but the special deal was for only five nights. After flying that far we wanted to stay longer than that. Sandy found a nice place on the east side of the island, the Kauai Coast Resort, that we booked for three additional nights. That would give us some extra time on the island. It also provided access for us to explore other parts of Kauai.
Before leaving the south side of the island, we made one last stop at The Right Slice, a pie shop in Kalaheo. We had driven by several times and always intended to stop for dessert. But usually after we ate lunch or dinner we were too full for anything else. Or we came upon a Lappert's Ice Cream shop first. Since this was our last opportunity we decided not to take any chances. We went there for breakfast. I was hoping for my favorite, cherry pie, but no luck. Instead we tried their lilikoi (a type of passionfruit) cheesecake. Usually I am not a big fan of cheesecake but I do love passionfruit and this was delicious. Now we were truly ready to leave the south side of the island.
Looking along the beach from the Kauai Coast Resort
It didn't take us long to drive through Lihue and over to our new resort. We got there early in the afternoon so our rooms weren't ready yet. They told us to come back at 4pm which seemed reasonable. We did check out the resort grounds. The pool was closed for rework but the beach in front of the resort was beautiful and almost deserted for as far as we could see in either direction. The Sheraton where we had stayed in Poipu Beach was a hotel with small rooms so many of the people who stayed there just spent the whole day at the pool/beach area. This resort was all condos and it seemed that most people just used it as a base, so they were either out somewhere or hanging out in their condos. That meant that there were only a handful of people at the beach.
Since we had time to kill we drove to Kalalau Lighthouse at the northeast corner of the island. I had seen pictures and it looked spectacular. It's at the end of a point of land which sticks out far into the ocean. Very photogenic.
Kalalau Lighthouse - on a clear day
We found the viewpoint that I had seen in the pictures at the end of the public road. The lighthouse itself is in a wildlife refuge and we would have had to pay to go the rest of the way. We didn't bother. The end of the road was the best viewpoint anyway.
And we didn't need to go into the refuge to see the wildlife either. There were nene geese walking all over the place at the viewpoint. It's the Hawaiian State Bird, which is nearly extinct and protectected by the refuge. But there were so many of them I had to be careful not to run over them.
The only bad news was that it was overcast. I took some photos but they were mediocre at best. Fortunately when we went to the north coast on another day we had clear skies in the morning. It was easy to make a quick stop on our way north and get a much better picture. It's the one that I included with this post.
A nene goose strolling down the road
Along the road to the lighthouse was the historic Kong Lung shopping center. It was small but we stopped there and got some good pizza at Kilauea Bakery and Pau Hana Pizza. It was a good thing because by this time we were starving. Right next door was a soap and candle store. Sandy thought it was the same store that we had visited in Koloa a few days before but I was sure that it was different so I encouraged her to check it out. Turns out that I was wrong. It was was just another location for Island Soap and Candle Works. But Sandy still found a lot of different stuff that they didn't have at the first store. Sincei it took her a while for all her purchases, while she was shopping I went back to the bakery for dessert. I got a really good passionfruit smoothie and picked up a piece of macadamia nut dark chocolate fudge for Sandy to eat when she finished.
A rainbow at sunset
After that we went back to the restort. It was well past the time that they told us our room would be ready. Except that it wasn't ready. It turns out that we had to wait till after 6 pm to get into our room. The Coconut Market place shopping center was right next door so we went over there to look around and kill some time. We had been to this place on our last trip but it seemed to have fallen on tough times since then. Half the shops were empty and there were almost no people around, although they were doing a major remodel so maybe the place will pick up again. Or maybe the people were staying away because of the rain, which eventually turned into a downpour and trapped us in one of the shops. Sandy didn't like being stuck there and wanted to run for it but I kept reminding her that we didn't have anywhere to go. By the time the rain stopped and we got back to the resort, our room was finally ready. As we brought our stuff in from the car there was a beautiful rainbow at sunset. As they say in Hawaii, no rain, no rainbows.
