Kauai

The first two weeks in June we worked on our tans, swam in the ocean, feasted on coconut, and temporarily satisfied my obsession with Jamba Juice. It's true, that description doesn’t sound anything like New Zealand in June. We met up with Mom and Dad Morris for two weeks in Hawaii.

We started on Kauai, spending more time exploring the island than soaking up the rays (we'd save that for Maui).

The beaches in Hawaii offer a lot of diversity. There are white and black sand beaches, green sand beaches, red/pink sand beaches, and rocky beaches. Basically any type of beach that you could draw up in your mind, it probably exists somewhere along a Hawaiian island coast. Kauai has it’s fair share of beautiful beach spots.

Lighthouses always make for a great photo opportunity.  Kauai has the Kilauea Lighthouse on the northern part of the island located in a wildlife refuge. The endangered Nene geese live there along with a number of other sea birds that nest on the nearby cliffs.

Kauai is also home to the "Grand Canyon of the Pacific" – Waimea Canyon. This canyon is unique in that it wasn’t carved out by a river; it was formed when the volcano that created Kauai collapsed.

We also took in a number of beautiful sunrises and sunsets. This one was from the beach outside of our resort.

Kauai is named the Garden Island, making it a good host for the National Tropical Botanical Garden. The garden is pretty expansive and has native plant life as well as plant life that early Hawaiians brought to the islands. The garden is housed on a settlement of early Polynesians with archaeological sites. The organization that manages the gardens also runs the Bread Fruit institute. We were first introduced to Bread Fruit at the exotic fruit farm tour we did in Queensland Australia. Breadfruit is a very starchy fruit (more like a potato in taste than actual fruit) and was spread throughout the Pacific islands by Polynesian settlers thousands of years ago. The institute believes breadfruit could be a solution to world hunger as it’s easy to grow in warmer climates and one tree can produce enough breadfruit to feed a family annually.

Next post I'll highlight our fantastic helicopter ride over Kauai...