Thibaudeau Travels: How We Fell In Love With Kauai.....

Kilauea Lighthouse

WOW...is all I can say about our trip to Kauai! I have been wanting to see this island for many years and we finally decided to make the time and island hop over for a weekend trip. Rudy and I havent been on a vacation like this in a long.....um...well never! This island is truly the most beautiful place I have ever laid eyes on. The beauty is unreal.

Day 1: Flew into Lihue airport and arrived at 6:30 Am, picked up our rental car (upgraded free by Geico, thank you) ;)

Decided to head to the North Shore of Kauai on our first day........Everything here is such an intense color of green, I was amazed by it. First stop was the Kilauea lighthouse (pic at top) which is the northernmost point of Kauai. Gorgeous place! Also saw some Albatross nesting below in the trees......

Continued our drive thru the countryside and stopped for a view of Hanalei Bay

Hanalei Bay

Hanalei Taro Fields.

Stopped in Hanalei, cute little town and then continued on until you couldnt drive anymore! One of the last beaches is Tunnels beach. The water there was the clearest I have ever seen!

Tunnels Beach....amazing clear water!

Backdrop view of Tunnels Beach!

Once we got to the very end we turned around and drove back to our hotel. Along the way there was quite a few "memorials" for the legendary surfer Andy Irons who just passed away last year.

Once back to our hotel, we relaxed for the evening by the beach until our next adventure the following morning....ZIPLINING!!!

Saturday Morning: Woke anxious and excited to go ziplining over the Kauai jungle! They took us to the top of the valley in their 4 wheel drive vehicles and suited us up in our gear and talked about how we were about to zip across 7 different lines (each gradually going down the mountain) First line was the highest at 250 feet!! OMG! I am deathly afraid of heights and have been working to rid myself of this fear for the last year.

They explained how once we were on the plank, we couldnt just drop off ...we had to RUN off the plank or we may get stuck midway if we didnt. Seriously, its one thing to maybe have someone push me off, or to just nicely drop myself, but RUN?? LOL...

I thought I may be sick at this point of the instructions!! But guess what? I DID IT! What an amazing feeling...

Me zipping 250 feet above the jungle!!

Me zipping away!

Thats Rudy way down there!

Rudy coming in for a landing

Here is a video of me zipping!

Here is a video Rudy took of himself "while" zipping....this was the last zip of the day, going over the creek. Low enough to trust holding his phone on this one, LOL

After a day of zipping down thru the jungle, we ended up at the bottom and they had lunch for us. What a great day!

We also stopped at Wailua Falls....WOW....thats all I can say...here is why

Amazing Wailua Falls

After this eventful day we ended up back in our spot on the beach by our hotel for the rest of the evening.

Sunday Fun Day!! Time for some "galavanting" WITH HOLO HOLO CHARTERS!

This is a 7 hour boat ride along the amazing Na Pali Coastline then if conditions are right (thankfully they were!) they take you across the channel over to the forbidden island of Niihau for some snorkeling by Lehua Rock!

These photos of the Na Pali Coast speak for themselves I think!! Never seen anything like this in my life!

View of the Na Pali Coast from the boat

Perfect morning lighting for photos :)

Rudy & I with "Kalalau Trail " in background

couldnt be happier!

Shaka Baby!

After the jaw dropping coastline....we headed over to Niihau Island. Once there we heard stories of Niihau and scouted for our snorkeling spot. Anchored in and all jumped in to see what was below.

Rudy and I decided to break from the group and head off a bit further away and so glad we did!! Right below us was a graceful Honu flying beneath us....we called over 2 other people who happened to be near us, but the "group" was to far away and missed it. Guess it pays to venture on your own! I followed the honu for quite awhile. Then awhile later I heard the captain say there was a monk seal by the shoreline...I looked up and saw him climbing to the rocky shores.

I continued to snorkel and look at all the colorful fish and looked to the depths and suddenly saw the monk seal underwater. It then SHOT with lightning speed right towards me, I felt both totally excited and a bit freaked out, LOL....it stopped and did circles right under Rudy and I!! Was looking right at us....I was in awe and this was a moment I will never forget!! It actually inspired me to do a painting of the event which you will see at the end of this blog. :)

Once snorkeling was done, got back on board and they opened the bar, so we had some beer for the crazy trip back. (maybe thats why they give u the alcohol for the trip back) because it was ROUGH WATERS!! Loved it tho...felt like being on a rollercoaster. It was so rough you couldnt even get up to walk around, had such a blast tho.

Didnt want the trip to end!

Here is our amazing crew....

Holo Holo Charters Captains/crew

Headed home to our "beach" again for the rest of the evening

Monday, our last day on the island, we planned to see Waimea Canyon...

drove to the top and it was a complete white out! Nothing but clouds, so dissapointing!

The amazing Waimea Canyon!! LOL

one of the wettest spots on earth! So guess that explains the white out, lol

This was at the very top during the white out....a rainbow appeared right before my eyes...I was looking OVER THE RAINBOW :)

We found out that we took the "un scenic" road coming up the canyon...so we took the other route back down and we got lucky and saw the views we were looking for...not the view from the top, but this was amazing!

just gorgeous!

On our drive back down from the canyon, we stopped to capture this shot of the green countryside with Niihau island in the distance (where we snorkeled the day before)