The Wandering Tattler

Today was devoted primarily to travel. We took a morning walk along Alii Avenue in Kalua and then packed up our stuff and headed for the Kona Airport. We flew Aloha again to Honolulu and then on to Kauai. Oahu had received torrential rains, and some towns on the windward (north and east) shore had received over 22 inches of rain in 3 days. Flash flooding had occurred in that area, with roads closed and yards and homes damaged. The windward shore is across the mountains from Honolulu, but it’s not a long distance and many people make the commute each day on the Pali Highway, which we’d driven while staying there. The Pali Highway, however, was eventually partially closed due to the flooding.
Kauai had also received heavy rains and had experienced flash-floods. Our arrival in drizzley Lihue, however, was uneventful, and aside from an extremely long wait for our rental car and unexpected confusion about the name and address of our condo in Poipu Kai, on the southeast shore of Kauai, the day’s events were pretty mundane.

Our travel agent had reserved a condo for us in “Resortquest Poipu Kai,” for which a specific street address and telephone number were listed. However, none of the large resorts on Poipu Avenue was named “Resortquest,” none of the staff in those resort offices had heard of “Resortquest,” and there was no office or accommodation at the designated street address. One office, however, allowed us to register and then sent us to an entirely different location, where we were expected and our reservation was honored. We’re now staying in an extremely beautiful second story condo facing the Poipu beach across a well manicured lawn. This unit seems to be a luxury condo, and its layout is incredibly elegant and tasteful. All the appliances are new and the furniture is quite lovely. Most of our seaward wall is occupied by sliding glass and screen doors that lead out onto a covered liana. We eat meals at a round light wood table while we gaze out at the sea. A Japanese White-eye (see image) has been feeding on nectar just beyond our linai.

We have no complaints except for the weather, which has been exceptionally wet this month. Kauai is the oldest of the main Hawaiian Islands (about 5 million years versus the Big Island’s 1 million), and its extinct volcanos have been heavily eroded. It’s not as tall as Maui or the Big Island, and its soil is deep red and much more developed than on the other islands. Its has relatively less flat land near the coast and is probably hillier than the other islands. Its hills form extremely steep pali’i with deeply fluted and heavily eroded sides. The overall effect is very dramatic, even though Kauai lacks the high elevations of Maui and the Big Islands. Because the mongoose has never been introduced to Kauai and because so much of the interior is almost impassible, this is the best place to see native forest birds. In particular the upper reaches of the Waimea Canyon and Koke’e State Park, which borders the fabled Alakai Wilderness, are the very best places to see this rare endemics. Tomorrow we hope to drive up the canyon, weather permitting.