"In Search of the Menehune" - Benjie1305's Trip to Kauai (DL J, UA J)

[Yehoshua]

Worked best for us considering that I really wanted to do some hiking and adventurous activities while she didn't and this was a compromise we both highly enjoyed.

Why not? Whats the issue in splitting a half day among one another doing different things?

I think he means his wife won't want to, not that there's anything at all wrong with it.

[mochjas]

I wasn't talking about myself but in general not everyone can pull that off. It was more of a backhanded compliment

[benjie1305]

I wasn't talking about myself but in general not everyone can pull that off. It was more of a backhanded compliment

Lol. Thanks. With kids, splitting up is one story but when going just with your spouse, Id venture to say its quite attainable. Just have to offer them something they enjoy. OR present them with something they really don't. In my case it was the best of both worlds. 

[mochjas]

Lol. Thanks. With kids, splitting up is one story but when going just with your spouse, Id venture to say its quite attainable. Just have to offer them something they enjoy. OR present them with something they really don't. In my case it was the best of both worlds. 

ive done it with kids as well! But at night while they were sleeping!

[benjie1305]

Wednesday, January 4th - Part I

What a busy day. Goodness. I don't know why I thought that filling the day with multiple activities spread out across the entire island made sense but I have since decided that it probably didn't. 

150 miles of driving. I mean it when I say that we had a LONG day!


There wasn't much planned for Wednesday other then a photo-shoot we had in the North around 3:30 pm.

You might think, photo-shoot? In the North? Let me explain:

Being that the GHK is so pricey when it comes to buying their pictures we had looked around for alternatives while we were in Kauai. (Turns out we did also partake in the GHK shoot and snagged an amazing deal but more on that in a later post) So, the way that I am a travel hacker, my wife is the ultimate life-hacker. She is always finding me and the kids free stuff and coupons you couldn't have imagined AND she also has a nag for free photo-shoots in the most remote of places. This is now our 3rd trip in a row (as family and as couple) in which she has secured us free photo-shoots that resulted in an amazing experience with highly talented individuals and beautiful pictures. She really is awesome at finding these with this find being quite hilarious.

She basically scouted the web for "Kauai+Photographer" until she stumbled across a local photographer with FB page, Instagram, website yada yada yada that was trying to enhance their couples-portfolio. She was looking specifically for people that are deeply in love and can show that love. It was hilarious.

We "applied" and after some recon got the gig:

(Excerpt from Recon):

A: Im looking for couples that are engaged or going out for a while and are deeply in love. [How much income do you have?]
B: Totally. Im not married for many years and with kids. No, no. Totally fresh in love. [$475,000]


At first I was contemplating making it a day up North but I quickly steered away from that idea as I didn't like the fact that in the middle of my day I would have to be pinned down to a certain area for the shoot and that it would tie me up for a few hours. The fact that it was supposed to rain that day didn't help either. [I know I know. Don't take the weather forecast serious over there. Its bogus. Well, it was the only day during our stay that the forecast said that it would rain most of the afternoon across the entire island. Guess the forecast gets it right once in a while.  ]

So I decided that we should go and check off some of the common sites that day before heading up North.

We headed over to Kauai Coffee Company right by Kalaheo first. This is obviously not the same as the fancy Kona coffee on TBI but still made for a nice drive, an easy and relaxing self-guided tour and some coffee samples. Fine, many coffee samples. Ok Ok Ok, I sampled them all.

The self-guided tour will not take you more then 15 minutes and then its really up to you as to what you wanna do there.









Me and my buddy


After sampling all the coffee on their premise it was time to move along and get going to the next item on the list. First I had to visit the restroom though. For obvious reasons.

We then made our way over to Hanapepe Valley Lookout. It is not far from the Coffee Company and has some nice views. *Rant Alarm* But please Kauai. You beautiful place. Can you PLEASE give your drivers more of a heads up and more space to pull over! The lookout is on the highway where you are driving at least 50 mph. It is then suddenly 1000ft away and the space they give you to pull in fits no more then 5 cars. It is so dangerous to slow down to a halt on that road and then await the space to maneuver in. How there haven't been major accidents there is a miracle in my eyes. *Rant Over*

For those of you that don't know, Hanapepe Valley was where one of the most brutal battles on Kauai took place. The rest can be read on the Revealed app. 





We then - how could we not - drove over to the Spouting Horn. Not sure what it was up to last night but it certainly had a major hangover as it wasn't interested in spouting much.

You disappointed me you silly horn!


No hard feelings though as we spend the remaining 20 minutes checking out the little flea market adjacent to the Horn before packing up and moving along.

Next we wanted to start making our way towards the North and what better way of doing so then by checking out the cascade of water falling from a height, formed when a river or stream flows over a precipice or steep incline. In short, the waterfalls.

First it was time for Wailua Falls. The ride is nice and scenic and once you get into Wailua River State Park the road starts getting very twisty and turny on you. A lot of left,right,left right, close and tight curves with traffic coming at you as well. My wife did NOT enjoy this. Like not at all. At this point we hadn't even been to the North yet where the roads are galaxies more horrible then over here. She was to hate her life by the end of that day .



Menehune?


PBaruch, found your buddy!


Next Stop: Opaeka'a Falls



Wailua River


After having spent the entire morning and early afternoon on the South and East side experiencing several beautiful sites, it was time to head up North for Part II of the day but boy did the weather turn on us.

Stay tuned..

[Yehoshua]

At least the first part of the day looked nice and sunny.

[tageed-lee]

Stay tuned..

That was such a tease....

[12HRS]

I really enjoy your writing style.

Does using a free photographer mean they can post your pics on their webpages?

[mmgfarb]

Can't remember if you mentioned already or not but what camera did you use?

[benjie1305]

At least the first part of the day looked nice and sunny.

Wasn't complaining about the first part. 

That was such a tease....

Listen, I wish I could dump out more material at once but with work and the rest of life it ain't always so easy. Figured I might as well  do it like this then as opposed to no posts at all.

[benjie1305]

I really enjoy your writing style.

Does using a free photographer mean they can post your pics on their webpages?

Funny that you mention that, she had us sign a model release agreement. Just in case one of our pictures ever makes it onto the front cover, it ensures that we have given consent and will NOT become rich. 

Can't remember if you mentioned already or not but what camera did you use?

I haven't mentioned it.

Between my iPhone and my GoPro I also used an old Olympus E-410 with a 14-42mm and a 40-150mm lens that my father was nice enough to gift me a few years back. I had lengthy discussions with Something Fishy about my camera and cameras in general that would make sense to get but decided against it for now. The simple reason being, there is no reason in spending money until I fully master the camera I already have, even if its old. Once I really max out its potential, I already have my eyes set on the next model.

[Something Fishy]

she had us sign a model release agreement.

Smart.

there is no reason in spending money until I fully master the camera I already have, even if its old. Once I really max out its potential, I already have my eyes set on the next model.

Smarter.

[Luvtotravel]

Listen, I wish I could dump out more material at once but with work and the rest of life it ain't always so easy. Figured I might as well  do it like this then as opposed to no posts at all.

agreed

[benjie1305]

Wednesday, January 4th - Part II

After all the fun sightseeing we did during the first part of our day, it was time to head up North for the "main course". While the skies were filled with clouds, a quick confirmation phone call with our photographer ensured that we were still on for our appointment. I mean after all she is a local. She must know best how the weather will turn out. 

We got through the Kapa'a Crawl just fine and were rolling up (or is it down) Highway 56. Being that my wife is very punctual, getting through the crawl was actually a real concern to her. How could we show up late to something. It would be the end of the world!

Wouldn't want to run into this


It wasn't until we were about 20 minutes away from Lumaha'i that the clouds completely opened up on us. But I mean completely opened up on us.

Being that I had no clue where I was going and was moving at negative miles per hour (due to the vision I had. And by that I mean there was no vision.) and my wife being busy saying Shema, I was not able to record this scene. But after scouring the web did find the video that best describes the scenes we witnessed ahead of us. How fitting that it was in Kauai as well. You can forward to 2:05 to gain a better understanding. The windshield-wipers were on the highest setting possible, moving from side to side at speeds that would make "The Flash" seem slow and it was still impossible to see anything in front of me. I mean the rain was hammering down on the window so brutally that I wished I had earbuds to save myself from the sledgehammer like sounds. At least we hadn't gotten into the crux of "north shore driving" yet which is made up of windy roads, one way bridges and no lighting whatsoever. G-d made sure to save that for the way back..

Finally we had made it over to Lumaha'i Beach. We had basically parked straight in the mud off the road next to some other super old car when our photographer advised us to get back in and park elsewhere. She went on to tell us stories of just how notorious backpackers and some local hippies are when it comes to stealing stuff and was adamant that that just wasn't a very good parking choice.
She went on to tell me how on two recent occasions stuff was stolen from her front porch. Once a broom they had just acquired and the other time her 6-year old daughters mermaid tail she got for Halloween. Are you serious? Not only did you ruin a little girls costume and make her cry but what the heck are you gonna do with a mermaid custom? Some people are just idiots. Stealing for the purpose of stealing with literally zero gain. Unless of course you were an actual mermaid that was missing her tail and was in desperate need of a tail to survive in which case I am Ok with it.

Either way, we moved our car a bit further inward and were "safe".

Parking right off the road




We then got into a bit more detail with our photographer into what her plan was for the afternoon and after signing a model-release clause -just in case Vogue, National Geographic or GQ came knocking on her door- we got started. It was still raining which she loved because it gave her a good excuse to not shoot directly at the beach yet but use the surroundings for some great photos within Lumaha'i's lush greenery.



After shooting there she told us to hop back into our car and follow her along to Ke'e Beach where Part II was going to take place. Even on a disgusting, grey, cloudy, wet and cold afternoon the parking lot finds a way to be filled to the top. I mean what are you people doing out here in this weather? Doing a photo shoot or something? 

We found a spot within a few minutes though and headed to the beach. It was soooo grey. I mean looking past Ke'e Beach onto the NaPali Coastline was basically like looking into nothing. You wouldn't think that there is a coastline over there.



And while I initially thought what a bad day we caught in terms of light, sunset (as in non-existent) and vision it wasn't until I ran into Gustav that my mind had changed. I had been watching Gustav standing about 30 feet away from us with a very obscure looking camera on a tripod just taking picture after picture of the coastline (that I could barely make out). At one point I walked over to find out more about the camera he was shooting with and what his deal was. Turns out he is from a place called Semmering which is about 30 minutes outside of my hometown Vienna. That was cool. He then told me he uses a Hasselblad. Hasselblad is a Swedish company that focuses on manufacturing Cameras and Image Scanners (But SF can surely elaborate further on them) and has very funky looking old school cameras. He then went ahead and showed me the images he had captured during that rainy and cloudy afternoon. Stunning. Just Wow. The layers of different grays. The interplay of the clouds. There was some amazing beauty in the pictures that one usually doesn't get to capture of this coastline that really made me excited to be there during that time.



[On a side note, we were very happy with our pictures and if anyone is going to Kauai and would like to contact our photographer we used in the North feel free to drop me a PM and Id happily be the middle-man and provide further details.]

It was then time to pack up and head back home after a very very long day. And of course, the heavy rain started again. Just this time we were starting our drive from Ke'e Beach which meant flash flooding, numerous OW bridges and NO light due to it being past sunset. This was the first time that even I was worried about what G-d had in store for me. Heavy rain and windy roads are not the best combo for a convertible. But, we made it through the darkness and finally -close to two hours later at around 9:30 pm- had made it to the light at the end of that tunnel. GHK at last. Not only that, it was time to sample the Kaumuali'i Royal Suite (Presidential).





Bedroom Area
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Partial Living Room Area
[url=https://flic.kr/p/R8yCWn]

Left side: Bedroom with terrace on bottom, Masterbath on top. Middle is Foyer which leads into full kitchen and dining room to the right and living room to the left. Big terrace across the bottom.


We had some Chinese that night but the truth is that we were so dead from the day that we just took a quick dip into the Jaquzi and then fell into bed. What a long long but oh so fun fun day we had! And yes, my wife made sure I bentch'd Gomel having that specific day in mind.

[Yehoshua]

Wow, what a scary drive. Is it normal for that area to have such strong rain frequently? We had some pretty hard rain in Hilo, but it was very light outside despite the rain most of the time. The first night driving to Volcano was in pouring rain and pitch black, but no OW bridges.

[cholent]

We don't get too see the pics of you and your wife madly in love?

[davidmal]

We don't get too see the pics of you and your wife madly in love?

or Hasselbland's layers of different gray???

[benjie1305]

Wow, what a scary drive. Is it normal for that area to have such strong rain frequently? We had some pretty hard rain in Hilo, but it was very light outside despite the rain most of the time. The first night driving to Volcano was in pouring rain and pitch black, but no OW bridges.

It can rain very frequently in the North and can also come down relatively hard but is usually subject to 10, maybe 20 minutes. This was a good hour+ of rainfall. It was a real adventure.

We don't get too see the pics of you and your wife madly in love?

If you work for a magazine and want to work out a deal, PM me

or Hasselbland's layers of different gray???

Im actually still waiting on those. He did say he was going to email me those!

[cholent]

This was a good hour+ of rainfall. It was a real adventure.
If you work for a magazine and want to work out a deal, PM me

While I was in college I did, but those days are long over 

[@Yehuda]

I thought the rain and flooding I faced in the North was bad, but your description makes me glad mine wasn't any worse. At one point, we had to drive across was had become a small river crossing the road (right before Ke'e). Not fun.

Did you go to Queen's Bath on another day or did you not get a chance to go? Was a great highlight of our trip.