Monday, September 30, 2013

September 16th

Day 3

This morning began with the "homemade" version of Apple-Banana Macadamia nut pancakes. I do like to flex my cooking muscle and I had planned for this by making a pancake mix at home using sprouting grain flour and brought it with me for the trip portioned out into servings that should make six pancakes each, also brought real maple syrup because life is too short to eat corn syrup! I did find buttermilk at Big Save but was prepared to make my own in a pinch. The pancakes were very good and we decided it was better to have breakfast in whenever we could manage to.  It was such a pretty morning so we went down to visit with the turtles.






Lots of turtle activity this morning and we could have watched them all day but we had to get going for our photo tour.
I was expecting significant traffic through Kapaa but we got very little so we arrived early and decided to walk on the bike trail for a bit. This is a great trail, too bad it is so short. Excellent views of the coastline but we were only able to walk about 1.5 miles before we had to head back for the tour. We told ourselves we would come back and rent some bikes to do cruising later in the trip

We decided to try the Kauai Photo Tour hike/drive tour. We are not serious photo buffs or anything. We both just have point and shoot cameras but we were hoping that this tour would take us to places we would not find on our own. Our guide, Matt had a wealth of photo knowledge but was a bit too heavy on the self promotion for my taste. He was very helpful with consulting about how to get better results and the advise on getting a polarizing filter to help enhance color is spot on.
We went to Hoopii falls first



Then we continued on to Moloaa Beach which was a truly beautiful location. We didn't have polarizing filter but tried to use sunglasses in front of our lenes from time to time in attempt to improve the contrast.




This is a nice beach and a great place for photos

This dog was trying to capture something but he only got wet!



We then stopped at Anahola Beach park. This is more of a local hang-out



no polarizer

with polarizer


Next we stopped for lunch in Hanalei at the Hanalei Taro & Juice company food truck.
They serve pretty good local style food. We went with a seafood Lau-Lau and one Kalua Pork lunch plate. Both were tasty and certainly cured any hunger we might have been feeling. The we went off to Lumahi beach. This is a pretty beach but had the most humans in residence so I think the photo opportunities were actually fewer here but still numerous.



 We then headed back south and stopped at some of the Taro fields by Hanalei.What is curious is that we did not stop at the Hanalei lookout? This is a great spot for photos and I am not sure why our guide decided to pass it up. I found this interesting because we had been to many populated locations prior to this. No big deal just a curiosity, Matt surely would have stopped here had I asked.




We then headed back to their shop in Kapaa. Even if you are not taking a photo tour with these folks it is worth a stop in their shop as they do have some great professional nature photos at very reasonable prices. This was a good tour but not what I had expected. I was hoping to go places that I might not find on my own. Everywhere we went was a location in the Ultimate Kauai Guidebook so I didn't learn any new cool spots. You don't do very much hiking so there is not much a physical component unless you have knee problems.

We drove towards home and stopped to pick up dinner at Mark's Place. WE both opted for the combo plate which consists of Teriyaki beef, Chicken Katsu, Beef stew, rice, plus noodle and macaroni salad. This is a lot of food for not a lot of money.
The beef stew was actually the standout followed by the Teriyaki beef. The chicken was a bit dry because it was pounded a little too thin. We had left overs that went into the fridge.
After dinner we had another visit with the turtles.
We make sure we stay far enough away to not disturb them. Some folks get too close and this makes the turtle move off the rocks. We talked about snorkeling in the stream outlet but it was getting too dark so that would need to wait for another day.
We took a walk over to the Kukui'ula shops and did some browsing. There are wonderful Kauai photos available here but they are rather pricey.

Tomorrow we have a hike scheduled in Waimea canyon area and need to wake up early so we head back to the house and get to bed.

This was a good day..

1 comment:

  1. Good to know about the photo excursion. I always wondered if I was missing something by not taking it, but doesn't really sound like I have. And, yes, a polarizer is a great thing to have!

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