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Kaua’i |
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Tuesday, August 26, 2008 A Day At The Gardens |
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I have to say that one nice thing about our resort is the location on the southeast corner of the island. In addition to being about 20 minutes away from the airport and in the island’s rain shadow (this area tends to get a fraction of the rain of the north side of the island gets!), we’re an easy drive to quite a few of the island’s sites. One of the nearby sites that we were excited to visit before we even got on our plane was the National Tropical Botanical Gardens. |
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We decided on the Allerton Gardens and we were able to get reservations (you HAVE to have them as the only way in is on a 2½ hour guided tour) despite Victoria being under the ten year old age limit (when we explained her experiences visiting Longwood Gardens, the Royal Botanical Gardens and others, they agreed to let her be ten years old for the morning!).
Also known as Lāwa’i-kai, Allerton Gardens is located on the southern side of the island (just a few minutes away from our hotel) amidst a steep valley cut out by the Lāwa’i Stream. The gardens were developed over through the 1930’s, 40’s, 50’s, and 60’s by Robert Allerton as he brought plants and statuary in from all over the world). |
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Our guide, Nate, was an absolute gem. He was definitely a garden geek, but one who has an incredible knowledge of and passion for the gardens. Probably the most mind-numbing bit of information that he shared with us is that less than 2% of the plants on the Garden Island of Kaua’i are native to the island. The Polynesians who arrived about 1500 years ago brought quite of few of their plants with them, but the rest were brought in by Europeans and Americans after Captain Cook “discovered” the islands in 1778. One of the plants that Allerton Gardens has, the Kanaloa, is one example of these rare plants – in the case of the Kanaloa, the plant they have is one of TWO examples of it known to exist (see below/left)! |
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Where the Lāwa’I Valley meets the Pacific (Allerton’s house is at the bottom) |
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Walking through the Gardens was like strolling through a tropical paradise. Once upon a time, Robert Allerton had designed the gardens to replicate a house, with walls of plants creating various rooms. Unfortunately, most of these rooms have been destroyed by hurricanes over the years, but you still get an idea of what they looked like. The rest of the walking tour took us through an array of tropical flowers, trees and fountains, ending up on Lāwa’kai Bay, where Allerton had his house. Even though we were a bit hot and had an on-going battle against the local mosquitoes, it was a fabulous way to spend the morning. |
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Some of the array of tropical flowers (no idea what they are besides the Bird Of Paradise on the right, but they were still beautiful!) |
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Some of Allerton’s water fountains. The fountain at right created a water rhythm that was at the same rate as a heart beat at rest and was an excellent source for meditation. |
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Searching for dinosaur eggs! This was where Spielberg filmed the scene in Jurassic Park where they discovered the hatched dinosaur eggs. |
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As we had dinner reservations in Princeville up on the north side of the island, we left Allerton Gardens and started making our way up and around the island. Along the way, we made a couple of stops at the Wailua Falls and Opaeka’a Falls, both of which are fed by the Wailua River. For us, the Wailua was the more impressive of the two at 173 feet tall. Besides that, it was the waterfalls used in the opening credits of the show, Fantasy Island. We continued north to our next stop, the Kilauea Point Lighthouse overlooking the ocean at the Kilauea Point National Wildlife Refuge (see below). For those of you who like your Disney movie, this lighthouse is one of the places Lilo and Stitch check out when Stitch is trying to find a way off the island at the beginning of the movie. While that was neat for the Disney geeks in us, we were equally fascinated by the red-footed boobies we saw nesting on the cliffs and the seals we saw resting on the floor below.
The Wailua Falls where they filmed the opening credit sequence of Fantasy Island → |
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We finally made it up to Princeville for our dinner at the Princeville Resort’s Café Hanalei. The Princeville Resort is arguably the number two resort on the island. While it has more of a corporate hotel feel than a tropical resort, the one thing it definitely has is a stunning view, with its location looking westward towards where the Nā Pali coastline starts. This view took on incredible proportions when the sun started going down, setting behind the Nā Pali coast – simply stunning and a fabulous way to finish a delicious dinner and wonderful day! |
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Tomorrow: Catamaran Trip To The Nā Pali Coast |
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