Fodor's Travel Talk Forums - Missing Trip Report

Vacation started with 8 days in Hong Kong to visit my husband?s family but that won?t be covered in this trip report.

We did fly from Hong Kong to Honolulu via Japan (Narita) but nothing to tell there because it was pouring raining and we spent our 7 hour lay over in the airport.

May 16th
We arrived in Honolulu at 8:35am on Sunday May 16th and I must say that I do not like the layout of this airport. We had a 12noon flight to Kauai but they offered to put us on an earlier flight, which was great. I must say though that the security going between islands was worse that our previous flight (Newark/New York; Hong Kong; Tokyo) which was kind of surprising. We had our entire luggage torn apart and the security guys were quite rude.

We finally arrived at our B&B early, but our hostess Grethe was okay with this. The B&B is called a Bed of Roses and is located off #580 in the Wailua Homestead near Kapa? a. It is a lovely studio attached to the owner?s home and comes complete with everything. Breakfast supplies to enjoy at our leisure; king size bed, cable TV, gas BBQ and the nice extras like beach chairs, towels, boogie boards, etc. Parking is right at your front door. All this for just $420US a week! I can highly recommend this IF you are not a light sleeper. It seems that Kauai has an overrun of chickens. Well it seems the neighbour raises them for cock fighting and they crowed non-stop from about 4am to 10pm.

After we got settled (but not unpacked) we headed north on #56 to Kapa?a for lunch and groceries. We stopped for quick burgers at Bubba?s. Okay, but nothing special. We then drove North to see what?s was out there. We only went as far as a fruit stand where my husband bought lots of fresh fruit. We then went to Safeway for groceries. If you don?t have a Safeway card, get one, even for a one week stay. I should have because we shopped there 3-4 times and I could have saved $3 on my yogurt on just one visit. We then went home for a long nap (3.5 hours). We were tired because we were up at 4:40am on Sunday morning in Hong Kong to catch our flight to Honolulu. We then flew to Tokyo Int?l airport where we had a 7 hour lay over and then a long flight to Honolulu arriving 5 minutes earlier than we left ? Sunday at 8:35am. Love that date line. It was hard to put everything into my Palm Pilot when I got to live the day twice!

May 17th
Confirmed our helicopter tour for Wednesday. We spent the day driving all the way to the end of the road in the north visiting Guava Plantation, Anini Beach, Princeville Hotel (to make our reservation for the Friday Night Seafood Buffet), Hanelia (where we had lunch & lost my sunglass clip), Kepuhi Beach, Ha'ena Beach and then Tunnels Beach and Ke'e Beach (where parking was horrible even at 5pm).

May 18th
This was our day to do the big hike Nu'alolo Trail / Nu'alolo Cliffs / Awa-'awapuhi Grand Loop. We parked @ Awa-'awapuhi (in small parking lot) and walked 1.5 miles down to Nu'alolo. I couldn?t imagine doing the extra 1.5 miles after the big hike and I?m glad we did! The hike down was treacherous. Deep gullies with wet clay. Really steep and very dangerous. We came across a fork in the road and I assumed the one to the left was to the lookout. We were exhausted after the hike down and decided to pass on it and go right to the Cliff trail. It turned out that this wasn?t the case and we arrived at the true fork (with signs) a little while later. We still decided to forgo the lookout because it was not a simple hike and it would add another mile to the trip. Plus the blue guide book said the 2nd lookout was better. I remember someone talking on this forum about a killer point on the Cliff Trail and boy was she right. I can?t believe they let tourists do that part of the trail. It was only a foot wide and a 2000 ft drop. After we did it, we thought maybe we shouldn?t have. The only driving force was that neither of us wanted to go back up what we had just come down! We stopped at the half way point for lunch where there was a shelter and picnic table. It was comforting to talk to hikers who were doing the loop counter clockwise. I kept thinking ?boy were they in for a surprise?. We arrived at the Awa-'awapuhi lookout and did it (only adding .3x2) to the total trip. It was amazing and definitely worth the extra half mile. The hike back up did turn out to be easy. A clean trail with a slow incline from 2626ft at the lookout junction to 4109ft at the parking lot. I must admit though that we did run out of water and was very disappointed to fund the museum & restaurant at the Lodge closed (10am-4pm). Total trip was 7 hours.

We met a guy at the first lookout, Stephen, who had zoomed past us on the way down. He had been out to the lookout but was contemplating doing the whole loop to avoid going back up Nu'alolo. He also miscalculated. He thought it was 3 miles to the lookout ? a quick 6 mile hike. It was 3.8 miles one way and so tough going down. He had water but no food. He then decided to join us for the walk out when we offered to drive him back down to his car eliminating the extra 1.5 miles on the road to his car.

All in all I can say it was an experience I?m glad we did but I would suggest to anyone to do it differently. I believe you can get almost the same bang for fewer bucks. I would suggest a nice and easy hike down Awa-'awapuhi to the lookout and then right back up. 3.1 miles one way, an easy 6.2 return. No problem either with the car! Also, my husband was sliding down into his hiking boots for so long and so steep that his two toes next to the big toes turned purple and then he lost them about a week later. He?ll never forget that hike ?that I made him do!?

We stopped at Jo Jo?s for shave ice in Waimeia on the way home. Definitely a must stop! $2 for a much needed refreshment especially after running out of water and having the lodge closed! My husband though that it was too sweet.

After a much needed shower, we then went for Sushi dinner at a restaurant called Kintaro in Kapa?a. We should have made reservations. 8:30pm and it was packed with locals. It had a nice atmosphere but the sushi selection was small and the price wasn?t great. (We?re sushi connoisseurs).