Day 10 Thursday 6 November

This morning we watched the ship enter the port of Nawiliwili on the island of Kauai. It is a really difficult narrow twisting entrance & I was very impressed yet again with the boat handling skills of the crew being able to negotiate such a large ship through such a difficult entrance. We had an early breakfast & were the first two passengers off the ship at 8am to catch our “Heaven & Earth Quest” tour. This time our bus driver was Kanen & he took us on a very interesting & informative tour. We stopped first at a nearby waterfall & explained the why & wherefore of all the wild chooks running around free everywhere. Apparently the chooks are Portugese fighting chooks & were brought to the islands for fighting & the subsequent gambling. During hurricanes they escaped during the storms & over hundreds of years, with no predators, have become the apex wild animal on Kauai. They are feral & a pest & apparently not too good to eat, the meat tastes too gamey.

We continued on, looking at different types of trees Kanen pointed out to us, including eucalyptus & macadamia (again), taro being cultivated, before stopping at a scenic lookout over Hanamaulu Bay. We even saw some bison grazing in a paddock in the distance below. Here Kanen pointed out the features of the dragon from the song “Puff, the Magic Dragon”. Apparently the songwriter drew his inspiration from this landform. It is very scenic. We continued on & drove into the township of Hanamaulu Bay, driving on the beach & looking at the houses. Any beachfront house cost $20 million, no matter how daggy it was, with any house across the street costing $10 million, again no matter how daggy. Apparently it is the playground of the rich & famous with movie stars, musicians, film directors, etc having houses there. Kanen did point out a woman he said was famous, she just looked like any other young woman to me. On the way back out Kanen stopped next to an old church that charges $10,000 for any type of reception held there. It did have some nice stained glass windows.

Kanen then drove us to another public beach park where we stopped for lunch under the shade of a huge tree. There were some Australian Casuarina trees hugging the shoreline. The view was very nice here & the beach was protected by a reef system about 200 metres out from the shore. The Venezuelan group from our bus tour all went for a short swim after lunch.

Our next stop was a seabird sanctuary on a high Kilauea Point with a restored disused lighthouse dominating the site. Kanen told us that this small sanctuary attracts over 5 million visitors a year, averaging $5 per visitor they can afford to run their seabird protection program very well. We saw a lot of blue footed boobys perched in trees on the hill opposite, with some frigate birds soaring above us. There are a lot of the rare Nene Geese here, not shy at all, plus a lot of baby Grey Shearwaters (muttonbirds) sunning themselves outside the nesting burrows.

Blue Hawaiian Helicopters at Lihue Airport was next & after the mandatory safety briefing we were allocated our pilots & seating positions. Mark was to be our pilot for our 45 minute flight & he proved to be very competent & informative. There were a lot of other helicopters landing & taking off all the time here & after waiting for a few of them we took off over the south coast, over the harbour & our ship, then following the Kaumualii Highway loosely as we flew. The scenery was amazing, then we reached Waimea Canyon. The canyon was extraordinary, so deep & spectacular. Mark flew us up a lot of the side valleys, then the main Waimea Canyon itself. There is a lot of erosion that Mark explained was caused mainly by the wild goats overgrazing the high ridges & mountain tops. This is truly a rugged & very remote location, accessible only by walking in or by helicopter. Mark showed us the location where a number of different movie scenes were shot.

Our next piece of amazement was the Na Pali Coast. This piece of coastline is only able to be viewed either by walking, boat or air, the area is that rugged. There is a walking trail that hugs the cliff sides for around 20 miles, requiring a permit before being allowed to challenge the hike. The hikers must be extremely fit, self contained & not be afraid of heights, the trail is amazingly rugged. The Na Pali Coast is even more spectacularly beautiful than Waimea Canyon. This piece of coastline is normally very wet & cloudy, however, lucky for us, today it is dry & we are rewarded with some amazing sights. The Na Pali Coast is covered with waterfalls & small green ferns, it is too steep for trees in most locations. Mark shows us a small islet just off the coast, it is covered in a species of palm trees that are unique to the islet, found nowhere else in the world, we were looking at the entire population of these types of palms, maybe 100 in total.

There are not many beaches dotted along the Na Pali Coast, only where a large creek runs into the sea or a large landslip has occurred. Mark told us of a Polynesian tribe that lived only on the Na Pali Coast but disappeared in the 1800s without a trace. Nobody knows what happened to them or where they went. One can only speculate it was either disease or tsunami that took them. The side of the mountains still show some terracing, proof of habitation.

We then flew to the wettest spot on earth & sure enough, it was raining, though not very heavy. This is at the head of a large valley that funnels the moisture laden trade winds up to the base of a large dormant volcano & the clouds have nowhere to go but up, a very long way, cooling & dumping lots of rain as they go. After seeing some very close up views of the continuous over 2,000 foot waterfall we turned back to the airport & left the helicopter with the engine still running for the next group of tourists. We purchased a video taken from our helicopter of our flight.

Our snack from our butler this afternoon was some yummy selection of chocolates, washed down with some nice coffee again. Dinner tonight was at Teppanyaki at 5.30pm as this restaurant is very busy & we were very hungry. The teppanyaki started with Miso soup, followed by a seaweed salad. Then the chefs came on & displayed their flashy tricks with food & cooking implements while cooking up some fried rice, then lobster, scallops & calamari. I washed this down with some warm sake. Dessert was a sushi fruit selection that was fresh & very tasty especially the pineapple. Entertainment tonight was a rock & roll tribute put together by a very competent husband & wife team that have been doing this type of thing for years.

All these exquisite sites we have seen in Hawaii are unforgettable. The attention to small details, the care to please, entertainment & the luxury we are living on the Pride of America will be hard to beat.