September 24

Day 11

Today we are planning on taking a tour of Allerton Gardens in the morning and in the afternoon we have an ATV Tour of Kipu Ranch scheduled.

We have our normal breakfast of pancakes and fruit while we watch the turtle activity in the cove.

Our garden tour is the first of the day and the bus is full. Our tour guide is an old hippie dude named Dave and you know how sometimes you just don't have a good feeling about someone?  That's how I felt here. He seemed like his goal was to give us his life story instead of information about the gardens. Now I realize that all tour guides give you some personal stories but believe me we got 80% about him and 10% about the gardens and 10% his opinions.
On the short drive to the gardens you get a nice view of Lawai Kai beach. This where the Allerton house and the Queen Emma cottage are located.

The gardens are very pretty, on this morning we are initially dealing with some rain showers so photo opportunities are not the best.

There are some nice water features throughout the gardens.

Lot's of mosquitos here so if you take this tour you might want to bring a DEET laden bug spray. Just about everyone had them buzzing around their legs each time the tour stopped.

There was a lot of grounds maintenance going
on in the background which was nice to see however a bucket truck does not look good in your pictures. After a short walk downhill we leave the maintenance folks behind













The next water feature is a long italian made fountain that flows with a sort of heart beat cadence that is very soothing to listen to and to watch.

The skies clear up a bit and the sun begins to shine giving us better light for pictures than we had earlier.

After we round the bend from this fountain we get our first glimpse of the fig trees featured in Jurassic park.

These are just amazing trees. Everyone takes turns getting photos beside the giant roots.

Truly amazing stuff.  There is also another tree here that was used in Juassic Park.

This is the tree limb that Dr. Grant and the children spent the night on and fed the dinosaur. Pretty neat. This is just about the end of the garden tour. It is beautiful and we didn't know it at the time but we would be getting another view of Lawai Kai beach later in our trip.

On the drive back to the garden headquarters our guide asks for tips. For me this is a real no-no. It's bad form. Everyone knows that if you like your tour you can tip the guide. When guides ask for money I am really put off. To date on this trip NO tour guide has asked for money. Not our hiking guide, not the the dudes from Capt. Andy's, nobody from Outfitters, not our photo tour guide, nope just the old hippie dude. Yes I tipped all those other tour guides cause it's the right thing to do. I built in $500 in my budget for tour guide tips. I knew I was right about this dude early on. I didn't let it bother me because after all I'm on vacation but this is a line I don't like crossed.

Back home we have a nice lunch and a quick visit with the Turtles before heading over to Kipu Ranch for the ATV tour. There has not been too much rain of late just short showers which actually have been frequent for Poipu but no serious accumulation so the trails are mostly dry and dusty.
We meet our guides for the trip Lumbo & Troy and then get fitted for our safety gear. Due to the dust you dress up like the Frito-Bandito.

I think Cori sports the look much better than I do.

Kipu Ranch is beautiful. We visited here for the ziplines but now we will get the chance to see more of the ranch. The ATV's are a lot of fun, they have great power and fly through the rugged trail with ease. We didn't get muddy at all but the red dust got everywhere, and I do mean everywhere. Our tour guide yesterday said the the cave in the background kind of looks like Homer Simpson holding a beer so I strike the pose.

We stop at the river where the Indiana Jones rope swing is and I can't resist the opportunity to swing out and into the river but there is no plane to spirit me away so I just have to swim back to shore.

This is good fun. We have a snack of some cookies and then are off to the top of the mountain for a view of Kipu Kai beach.

The trek back to the starting point is our longest ride of the day and we flush out some pheasants in the tall grass. Once back at the start we get out of our helmets and bandanas and then we realize how dusty we truly are.

We take a detour on the way home and hit the Right Slice pie shop to pick up dinner. We select a chicken pot pie and a beef & porter pie for dinner tonight.

We then head home for much needed showers.

After we get cleaned up we stroll over to the beachouse to watch the sunset.

 When we get back home our pies are just about ready to eat.

We both agree that the chicken pot pie beats out the beef & porter pie but both are good and our admiration for the Right Slice pie lady grows higher.

We spend a quiet evening at home soaking in the hot tub and star gazing.

We have to get up early in the morning to be on the north shore for a snorkel tour.