Day 11 Friday 7 November

The McBryde & Allerton Gardens was this morning’s bus tour, with an early 7.15am start. Our driver Sam took us first ly to see some blowholes spouting. There was only a small swell, so the small blowhole was spouting nicely, with a great exhalation of air each time it exploded out. The large blowhole needs more swell to get it pumping. We were also treated to the sight of some sea turtles feeding in a small inlet near the blowholes. More feral chooks in the car park, they are everywhere.

Our next stop was overlooking the gardens where Allerton had his house & private beach, with a customary grove of coconuts. This was once the site of Hawaiian Queen Emma’s home & apparently Allerton had her house moved down the hill & re-erected next to his house after the death of Queen Emma. This beach has also been the site used in many movies. We continued on through the electric gates & wound our way down the hill with great views of many of the trees & distinct gardens. At the main machinery building we disembarked the bus & started our walk, first looking at the water lilies & fish in the old concrete water reservoir, complete with fat cane toads sitting on the water lilies.

The garden is full of fruiting trees, including breadfruit, there are orchids all over & all sorts of different tropical flowering plants. There are shaded pathways throughout the gardens, with several formal garden rooms, such as the “Pineapple Room”, the “Deer Room” & the “Diana Room”. The entrance to the pineapple room is flanked by two large pineapple sculptures, with a small pond & two cherubs standing spouting water into the pond. The Diana room has a statue of the goddess with some reflection pools in front of a gazebo, with views down to another garden. They are very tastefully created. We continue the walk coming across many flowers we have never seen before. There is also an extremely effective mini-forest of mother-in-law tongue.

The garden also has some very effective waterfalls created that lead the eye off in another direction again. Down at the bottom of the garden we are treated with a vista seen in many movies & TV shows. Sam told us that here was the lagoon from Gilligan’s Island, also various scenes from Pirates of the Caribbean, Jurassic Park, etc. We also saw the spot where the egg was discovered in Jurassic Park, amongst the large roots of an Australian Morton Bay Fig tree. There is also a very pretty bamboo grove here, it is very restful to hear the wind gently swaying through the leaves. There is an astonishing rate of growth of the bamboo given the high rainfall.

Another water feature we enjoyed was one that had a mermaid at each end with a basket on the head, with a long, squiggly, slightly downhill water feature that pulsed water into the small pond at the bottom with a heartbeat rhythm, it was extremely effective & intriguing to watch it working. I was fascinated by the design.

Back into the small bus & off to see the natural waterfall with its swimming hole. This is where Queen Emma used to bathe & Sam told us that this site was off-limits to any Hawaiian man, if he was caught here the fate was death.

All through the gardens Sam told us about the medicinal value of many of the plants & what they were used to treat. He also told us which of the plants were used for food, clothing, making rope, weaving for sails & which ones were poisonous, including the strychnine vine, fatal if eaten. We were treated to a lunch of turkey/vegetarian wraps followed by a treat of fresh sweet Hawaiian pineapple, it is so tasty, can’t eat enough of it.

All too soon it was back to the ship for a 2pm departure & we spent the time watching the captain navigate the ship expertly out of the harbour, he is really skilled manoeuvring this large ship out of such a small harbour & around the tricky channel, from our veranda we can see the jutting out part of the bridge, it is fascinating to see (sometimes) the captain in action. Our butler delivered some treats to us again as we settled in on our balcony chairs for the next part of our cruise. We sailed along the coast of Kauai around to the section called the Na Pali Coast, an extremely pretty mountain range that is so scalloped with erosion & with such rugged beauty. Unfortunately when we get to the Napoli coast the clouds are hiding the sun so the full beauty cannot be seen. As the ship turns to head back the other way along the Na Pali Coast, a rain front comes through, the sun sets & the coast is obscured by cloud & rain. Lucky that we have seen it all by helicopter.

Dinner on the last night was in the Liberty dining room where our waiter was a very happy & chatty young girl called Tracy that really put a smile on our face. The dinner was very nice, as usual & we followed that up with a little bit of retail therapy, where we found out that now we were sailing, all items were duty free. Afterwards we finished off a great week by listening to Tim Dion on guitar again before heading back to our cabin to pack ready for departure tomorrow.

What a wonderful week, we have seen so many natural wonders & beauty. The excursions made it all complete, well worth the expense. The ship cruise was WOW, WOW, WOW such luxury, thanks to the chefs, waiters, our smiling young Ramasom, the cleaner. The butler, Jose doing his best (with people who didn’t know what to do with him). Thomas the Concierge, smiling every breakfast chatting to us about our plans for the day & never missing to find us whichever restaurant we dined in to check if we were happy. We know that this is their job, but they have good people skills to make you feel special. How will we go back to being Mr & Mrs average?