Polihale Beach Driving
Here is the video of the calm before the storm. You can see here what I suspected all along; beach driving really is not all that exciting. Witness the moments just before the downfall.
Our adventures on the Garden Island of Kauai, Hawaii, including beaches, hiking, dining, travel, and activities.
Here is the video of the calm before the storm. You can see here what I suspected all along; beach driving really is not all that exciting. Witness the moments just before the downfall.
Posted by Jessica at 12:10 PM 6 comments
Is camping really that bad? The wife seems to think so. I'm no Paul Bunyan but even Mr. N enjoys the occasional tent and sleeping bag excursion. Not so much with Mrs. N. The closest that she will get to camping is renting a log cabin with a shower, high-speed internet and a plasma TV of no less than 42 inches.
We tried camping once before and even I have to admit that it was a debacle. I ordered a tent off eBay and reserved a camping section complete with grill and parking spot. We were camping in the Shenandoah Mountains in May 2006 and things started off pretty well. We pitched the tent, started a fire and had a decent meal. We talked and looked up at the stars so things were looking good.
For Jessica, the problem isn't this part, it's the sleeping situation. I tried to make things as comfortable as possible by getting a queen sized air-mattress and a new sleeping bag. Little did I know that it was unseasonably cold that day and the lows hit 37 degrees. Add that to the fact that Mrs. N had bad allergies that night and you can probably guess who cleared camp by himself in the morning.
I was pleasantly surprised when Jessica suggested that we go camping before we left Kauai. I had always talked about how much fun it would be but she never seemed too thrilled. I think she kept hoping in the back of her mind that I would find someone to go with but she probably realized that you have to actually have friends in order to pull that off. She is a great wife so she eventually caved and proposed camping for a night at Polihale State Park.
To get there, you take a 5-mile dirt road filled with potholes, so we rented a Jeep for the night. Lets just say this this was the crappiest rental vehicle I have ever rented. When I wanted to put something in the glove compartment, I pulled the handle and the entire compartment came crashing to the ground. I think the engine was held together with duct tape. More on the Jeep later.
We got to the camp and started to set up. For those of you who know me, you know that I am not the handiest of men. In fact, I am the least. My dad built a deck by himself back when we lived near the ocean in Ireland and I can't put furniture together from Ikea without the help of my wife. Here are some shots of my futile attempts to set up a 2-person tent.
Posted by Conor at 11:22 PM 1 comments
We're home. We touched down at Dulles yesterday afternoon, and were greeted by the entire Nicholson clan. Conor donned a tie and dress socks today for the first time in 8 months! It'll be a little while before we get our stuff out of storage and unpacked, but the house is still in one piece and NOVA seems to have survived without us.
Coming soon... some photos to post of our last days in Kauai as well as our trip to Denver.
Posted by Jessica at 11:04 PM 0 comments
Conor and I arrived in the mile-high city yesterday morning after departing from Kauai Tuesday night. Our 250 pounds of luggage, however, did NOT arrive with us. After an entire day wearing the same clothes from Tuesday, it was finally delivered to our hotel early Thursday morning. We're making a quick stop here while Conor touches base with the Colorado office. Since it's our first time in the area, we plan to do a little sightseeing before heading back to Dulles on Sunday morning.
Although our adventures in Kauai have come to an end, we still have a couple more things that we haven't gotten around to posting yet. It's been hard to fit in blogging with craziness of moving. But we should have time in the next few days to put up a few more posts on some of the activities of our last days, and hopefully also of our time here in Denver. Stay tuned!
Posted by Jessica at 2:24 PM 0 comments
In our last couple weeks on the island, Conor and I tried to soak up as much as possible before we left. Although we know there’s a lot of things we’ll miss about
Top 10 things we’ll miss about
Top 10 things we WON’T miss:
Posted by Jessica at 2:17 PM 4 comments
If you think that reading the subject line is hard, try doing the subject line. According to National Geographic Magazine, Jessica and I recently survived the #2 adventure in all of the United States. We have been planning to do this for a long time and even went on a couple of short kayak trips on the Hanalei and Wailua rivers for practice. Lets just say that kayaking in the ocean is a little different from kayaking on a still lake.
We read about this adventure in our beloved guidebook, The Ultimate Kauai Guidebook, and were always intrigued as the Na Pali Coast is known to be one of the most beautiful coastlines in the entire world. We didn't decide to actually go ahead and do it until we took the boat tour. The views were so breathtaking that we wanted to see them again and it only made sense to do it from an ocean kayak.
For those of you that are not familiar with Kauai, the Na Pali Coast stretches 17 miles along the north and northwest portion of the island. It is filled with numerous mountains, valleys and canyons so living on this portion of the island is impossible.
To prevent drowning, Jessica and I decided to go with a guided tour group. They drop you off at on the north side and pick you up when you land on the west side at Polihale. You get there at 6am and get back at 7:30pm so it's an all day event and you are plenty tired at the end.
You may notice that these pictures look like they might have come from our boat tour. The reason why is that they did come from our boat tour. We were planning on bringing our digital camera, but almost everything you bring gets wet. Even in the dry-bag, condensation can fog up the lens and destroy the camera. Knowing my luck, we decided to play it safe.
Thank God we did because the minute that we were pushed into the ocean by our guide, Jessica was smashed in the face by a huge wave. The poor girl hadn't gone more than 12 inches and she was already soaking wet. That was just the beginning . . .
While Jessica and I are not the best kayakers in the world, we are far from the worst. However, on this day, the rest of our group consisted of a canoe team from Big Island that ranked 6th in all of Hawaii. Within 5 minutes of entering the water, they were 500 yards ahead of us. We tried to keep up but this was our first time in the ocean and I wasn't exactly Mr. Smooth when it came to the steering.
Things went from bad to worse on our first break. Everyone casually jumped into the ocean for a quick dip and I attempted to do the same. After a minute or so, I tried to get back into the kayak. Big mistake. I leaned over, thought I was in, and then the entire boat flips, including Mrs. N.
As you might have guessed, Mrs. N was none too pleased. She gave me the glare of death that I am accustomed to and helped me flip the kayak back over. I grabbed my shirt that was floating in the water and was pleasantly surprised when I saw that my $150 Oakley sunglasses had broken in half.
I got back into the kayak and began the mourning process for my shades. I look up to see Mrs. N attempting to get back into the boat and . . . you guessed it, we flipped over again. We flipped 2 times in about 2 minutes and everything we had was drenched to the core. Everyone looked at us like we were some type of traveling circus act.
At that point the guides noticed that we were not the most agile team so they decided to break us up. Jessica got into the front of one of our guide's kayak. I remained in our kayak and a nice woman took Jessica's spot. We both noticed an immediate improvement. The other guide told me not to sweat it and joked that the tour had caused numerous divorces due to the constant bickering between man and wife. He speaks the truth.
We paddled for about 3 more hours. My arms and shoulders felt like someone had dropped cement blocks on them from 95 stories above. To say that we were absurdly sore would be an understatement. We finally stopped for lunch at Miloli'i Beach. They had a really good spread with fresh pineapple, sandwiches, cookies, and chips. We laid on the beach while some of the crazy canoers went on a hike. Laying in the sun, I was out like a lamp within seconds. We relaxed for about an hour and then it was showtime.
The paddling after lunch wasn't as bad since it was only 2 1/2 hours to Polihale versus the 4 hours it took us to get to Miloli'i Beach. It was fun because everyone was talking to each other and we were all telling jokes and admiring the beautiful views. We saw a few dolphins and even a monk seal laying on the shore. Sea Turtles were also common.
Finally, we saw Polihale beach. The bad news is that we saw it for about an hour. We probably had about 3 more miles to go but the beach seemed so close and yet so far away. It felt like we would never get there but when we finally did, I felt like kissing the ground. We rinsed off at the outdoor showers, jumped into the van and began our trip around the entire island, all the way back to Hanalei.
This was an amazing trip and we have memories that will last a lifetime. If you have the will and are just a little off in the head, this adventure might be for you as well . . .
Posted by Conor at 4:22 AM 4 comments
Have you ever been to one of those small towns in the middle of nowhere that claim to have the “World’s Largest Chipmunk” or the “World’s Largest Wooden Porcupine”? If not, you are not missing out. Small towns love to have these obscure artifacts and Kauai seems to have fallen into this trap.
Enter the Kilauea Lighthouse, home of the world’s largest clamshell lens. I don’t even know what a clamshell lens is but I now know that it is no longer in use and that you can’t see it up close and personal on the tour. Jessica and I each paid 3 big ones (that’s right, 3 dollars) to see what many people see on their first trip to the island. The lighthouse has over 500,000 visitors a year and we have lived here for 7 months and it finally occurred to us that we might want to check it out.
The best part of the tour was the view of the ocean as there really isn’t anything special about the grounds. Sure there were a lot of birds, but our feathered friend, the Laysan Albatross, left the island last month so all I saw in my head was a bunch of white pigeons.
Jessica and I will be building our next home here
If you don’t catch my drift, let me spell it out for you. Unless you like to see tons of birds sitting around and hanging out, the lighthouse probably isn’t for you.
Posted by Conor at 3:59 AM 1 comments