Chris and I fell in love with Kauai the first time we stepped foot on the island. It’s called the Garden Island and for good reason. The island is green and lush and full of gorgeous plants and trees. It also gets the most rainfall out of all the Hawaiian Islands – which is good for the plants, but bad for tourists who want to wait until the last few days of their vacation to book a boat tour of the Na Pali coast. Oh well, next time Kauai!
Here’s one of the reasons we love this condo, the morning view. 
No filter! 
Some of the flowers at our condo 
… 
…more flowers 
Ti plant 
There’s a park and bike trail right outside our condo. 
Great place to watch the ocean and feed the chickens 
There is a protected swimming area at the beach. Surrounded by large rocks and watched over by a lifeguard at the park. 
Another view of the swimming pool 
Here’s what the ocean looks like right next to the swimming pool. 
The area past those rocks is kapu and is sacred to native Hawaiians. 
One of highlights of the trip. We went on a bamboo forest guided tour in the mountains. Our guide showed up native plants, we got to sample fresh spring water, and were able to make our own nose flutes! 
Of course we went to a tiki bar while we were there. Tiki Iniki in Princeville. 
Great decor! 
Perfect in every way… 
…except the drinks sucked! They were very bad. Sickly sweet, no measurement, no balance… and they were expensive. 
We were waiting to go on our Na Pali boat tour and found out we were really close to Glass Beach! It also had black sand. 
wait for it… 
the beach had a crazy amount of sea glass! 
The sea glass was all pretty small. There were a couple of signs on the beach asking people not to take the glass and leave it for everyone to enjoy. 
The Maha ‘ulepu Heritage Trail is a coastal hiking trail running past beaches, cultural and historical sites, cliffs, and rock formations. Chris and I did this easy hike together. The hiking trail was roughly 2 miles long and offered us unobstructed views of the ocean. In hindsight, we should’ve done the hike earlier in the day, not just because it got pretty hot on the rocks, but because it’s a popular trail.
Some of the cliffs that we walked along the trail. 
The trail took us to the red cliffs. We walked along the edge of a golf course. 
Here is an example of a cultural site along the trail.
We did the Fern Grotto tour! I thought it was going to be expensive and lame, but it was priced fair, we had lots of entertainment on the boat, and the grotto did not disappoint.
The restaurant on the pier, opened in the 1960’s. Look at that roof line and lava rock! 
Closed down many years ago. 
I snuck around the side to peek into the windows. 
Check out these murals! 
We’re on the boat and heading up the Wailua river. 
Our entertainment begins with the soft guitar stylings of one of the Smith family. They also played ukulele and did hula for us. 
We’re off the boat and walking up the trail to the grotto. 
Clump of bamboo 
Massive philodendron climbing up a tree! 
The fern grotto 
Sword ferns hang upside down from the ceiling of the grotto. 
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