Kauai

The ship was scheduled to spend a day and a half in Kauai, docking in Nawiliwili Harbor.  We had again arranged to rent a car, again got picked up by the Thrifty shuttle and again had to wait for the best part of 30 minutes to get away.  (And we were the lucky ones - one unfortunate man had been waiting for over a hour and kept getting queue jumped by the Blue Chip customers.)

The car, when it eventually came, was immediately christened the Great White Hippopotamus.  It exemplified all that is bad about American cars - enormous on the outside, small on the inside, it wallowed and bounced through pot-holes, it didn't want to go around corners, and it drank gas like it was going out of fashion.  It would have been bearable on a long interstate with no corners, but it was totally inappropriate for Kauai's winding roads.

Still, we initially headed off up Waimea Canyon, the so-called "Grand Canyon of the Pacific".  It is big, impressive and colourful, although slightly spoilt by the constant buzzing of all the helicopters below you inside the canyon.

After this, we grabbed a quick Subway lunch and headed off round the northern shore of Kauai.  We stopped at a number of places, including the Kilauea Lighthouse bird sanctuary, and ended up at the Haena Beach Park.  This really is the beautiful Hawaii of most people's imagination - tropical beaches, palm trees, waves and the like, at which we both forgot to take any worthwhile pictures!

The following day, we had another lazy morning, and in the afternoon the ship sailed past the Na Poli coastline just before sunset - more scenery, greenery and steep cliffs.