Day 9 Road trip to the North Shore!

It is going to be a long fun day! We are packing up stuff and heading for a snorkeling spot that is on the North Shore. A drive of about 3/4 of the way around the island! 60 some miles with the plan being to stop at anything that looks interesting.

Stopped for Chicken McNuggets...

 Our first real stop was at Lydgate park so that London and Kailin could show us this playground. Quite impressive structure!










Egads! A SHARK!












London in the tower.












Volcano with a lava tube coming out of the bottom of it.











London and Kailin wanted Popee to follow them. They lost me shortly after this and we had a hard time finding them!

 View from the tower.  >>>

 Nanee and Popee sit down for a break!



This is the seed pod that is in the lower right of the picture at the left. Still not sure what it is.



Traveling on, we passed through Anahola and past the mountains that the guide book said had a profile of King Kong. We had to look back out of the car to see, and couldn't pick it out. When we returned later on the way home it was getting dark and could see the outline, but had a hard time picking it out. This is a picture that I got off the internet.





And this is the peak that looks like King Kong...I think I see it. One of the comments on the Internet is that if you use your imagination, you can see George Washington, a tortoise, a hippopotamus and a pregnant lady...Yeah right. Hey, I think I see a...MOUNTAIN!

Some of the houses that we passed are on stilts. This one just doesn't look stable enough for me. Is that just cinder blocks stacked up???









We arrived at Tunnels beach and after trying to find a place to park, we made it out here.

You are here>








 The snorkeling was fantastic! Or, more appropriately, I should say that the fish that we saw were incredible. There was a strong current running across the beach that kept dragging us over the shallow rocks. Took a lot of effort to stay in one place. It was fairly shallow out for a ways and then the sand dropped away into deeper (20 feet?) water. The rocks were along this ledge and there were fish everywhere. Visibility was good but not great and the water was a little rough. If it would have been calmer and clearer, it would have been better to go out farther. The arrow in the photo above is pointing to the small area that we snorkeled in and you can go all the way out to the reefs...if you want to.

Kailin and Eric go for a swim.

 We stopped at the park up the road a bit and the rock wall above it was covered with Banyan "roots"!

 Pretty amazing that there isn't much of a tree to go with them.

 Eric puts the size of it into perspective.

 Also, in the same wall is a huge cave. When we drove past it, both Popee and London yelled "we have to go in the cave!"

 Pretty deep.

 I wasn't even at the back of the cave at this point. The camera would not take a good picture from the back!

 They could have put the parking lot in the cave.

Someone had picked these up and set them out on a table. Not sure what they are, but they are weird looking.











Next stop was Hanalei and Bubba Burgers!

Eric and Popee had the Hubba Bubba. Rice, Hamburger, and a Hot Dog...smothered in chili!

Yummy!












More to follow, but I have to do some work and get ready to go on a tour of the Syngenta facility here...

Finished the tour. Intereseting, but will fill in the details later. Now, back to the North Shore excursion.

Old church in Hanalei

Seems kind of odd to see the abonimal snowman in Kauai, but Kailin didn't seem to care.

A Cook Pine Lei Christmas tree. Not something you see on the mainland.

 Of course we all had to get our picture with the mermaid body.






Everyone posed normal....

Except Eric!

Lonon and Kailin in front of a Taro plant. They are supposed to be hiding the rest room sign behind them.

We wandered around Hanalei and found this dining area that looked out on the mountains. Way in the background is a waterfall that cascades from the top of the mountain to the bottom. It was kind of hard to see with the clouds.

Lori, Eric and the kids.

Eric and I wanted to get some hot dogs and go to the Relish Salon...sadly, it was just a real salon with a fancy name.

Firecracker flowers and a HUGE Bird of Paradise plant. Would have liked to see the flowers on this one, but there weren't any at this time.

On the way out of town, we past a Hawaiian Hoarders house! Cool...

Drove all the way home without stopping, it had been a long day and everyone was pooped!