Today, we headed for the southern side of the island. We started out by picking up some coffee and malasadas (a Portuguese hole-less, yeast donut that has been embraced as part of the cultural stew that comprises Hawaii after successive waves on immigration). The donuts were pretty good: very reminiscent of my family’s German fasnacht tradition and of a similar pre-Lenten donut origin.
We enjoyed breakfast at Poipu Beach Park, where we intended to swim and try snorkeling again. To make things easier for Emerson, I bought her a “boogie board with a window” to toe her around, and I have Libby some snorkeling lessons the prior day in the comfort of our hotel’s pool. This was a partial success: Libby found the snorkeling much more enjoyable, but Emerson struggled a bit with the board as we had a little surf to contend with.
After the beach, we picked up food for a picnic lunch and drove to Waimea Canyon, aptly called the Grand Canyon of the Pacific and another example of the diversity of the Hawaiian landscape:
En route to the canyon…
Waimea Canyon
From Waimea, we continued up the road to Kokee State Park where we did a nature walk and got to see a glimpse of the largely inaccessible (unless you have a boat or a helicopter) Na Pali Coast:
Na Pali coastline from Kokee State Park
On the way back to our hotel, we stopped at the Kauai Coffee Company and sampled a variety of their offers, all of which were pretty good. Indeed, I might join their coffee club. After a dip in the hotel’s pool, we picked up take-out Chinese and ate it on the balcony off of our suite’s living/dining room.