Intrepid Adventurers
One popular Tourist Thing To Do on Kaua'i is backcountry adventures. There are lots of them - horseback riding, ATV tours, hiking, kayaking... all kinds of things to get you off the main roads and into the backcountry. On Monday, we had the first of two backcountry adventures. We went inner tubing
Sugar cane used to be a major industry on Kaua'i, but today there's only one active sugar cane plantation remaining (more on that later). So an enterprising entrepreneur now runs inner tube rides down irrigation canals on a former sugar plantation.
So here we are - the intrepid adventurers.
Intrepid Adventurers
And here's Terry waiting for the trip to start
Waiting For Adventure
And here's the tram that took us to our adventure, and a trailer full of inner tubes.
Tram & Tubes
At one point, the tram stopped to let us have a look at some scenery.
A Scenic Vista
Another Scenic Vista
Yet Another Scenic Vista (with some tourists blocking the view)
And here's a picture of Stanley, one of our guides. The other guides were Merle, Junior and Lolo.
Stanley The Guide
I don't have any pictures from the tube ride itself - my camera isn't waterproof, so I left it on the tram. Each of us climbed into a tube, and we proceeded to float gently down the stream. Merrily, merrily. We also went through several tunnels, and down some rapids. A pleasant morning.
At the end of the ride, we stopped at a swimming hole...
Swimming Hole
...and ate some lunch.
Lunch
To help us get an appetite for lunch, our guide informed us that "pipi" is the Hawaiian word for beef, and that "pupu" is an appetizer. So Hawaii is the only place where you can eat pipi and pupu, and it's OK!
(Sorry about that.)
Looking at my notes, I don't see anything about what we did that afternoon. I guess we didn't do anything. Well, we must have done something, but apparently nothing worth writing about.
Anyway, that evening, we all went out to dinner, to a restaurant called...
We had found the restaurant recommended in the guidebook. But it wasn't till I got there, and saw the sign, that I recognized it. There's one in Malibu - I've been there! This bothered me a little - as a general rule, when I'm on vacation, I avoid chain restaurants. Why should I travel thousands of miles to go somewhere I can go just as well at home? Oh, well - Duke's isn't exactly McDonald's, after all. The food was good.
And the view was incredible. The restaurant is on the shore of Nawiliwili Bay, at the southeast corner of the island (4:00). The dining room looks out over the bay, with the waves rolling in, framed with palm trees - picture postcard perfect. Awesome.
The View From Duke's
Again, the picture doesn't even come close.
So then we went back to the house and watched the rest of Gone With The Wind (it's a long movie).