Saturday, March 25, 2017

Day Four: Kauai


On our balcony, as the ship docked in Nawiliwili



Kauai, March 18, 2017. This island is the westernmost US territory. Any further west (such as some of the Aleutians) and you are in the eastern hemisphere. 

We landed at the island's only port, a small town with the improbable name of Nawiliwili. It had a small beachfront with two hotels, a little strip mall, and a Walmart at the top of the hill. 

There are several options for tours on this relatively undeveloped island, but we chose one of the least time consuming. We deferred on a trip to Waimea Canyon, which is called the “Grand Canyon of the Pacific”. That’s because the trip across the island would take the whole day and it was likely that there would be clouds at higher altitudes, just as you reached the best picture opportunities.




The plantation railway.
The main part of our tour was the Grove Plantation, a sugar plantation maintained by an early settler family. The most prominent manager of the plantation was a bachelor named George Wilcox. George was educated by tutors on Kauai until he went to Yale to get an engineering degree. He was responsible for the development of most of the island’s infrastructure, including the electricity, telephone, and transportation networks. Our ship docked in a harbor that had a plaque honoring Wilcox for designing and financing the harbor at Nawiliwili.

Grove Plantation
We followed the morning tour with an afternoon ride on the Plantation Railway. This is a tourist train (not an original sugar cane railroad) that passes by all manner of cultivated fruit: avocado trees, orange groves, pineapples, breadfruit, mango, sugar cane, etc. It also moves through pastures with goats, pigs, donkeys, geese, and horses. It made for a pleasant afternoon in a tropical paradise. After a walk along the pier we were ready for another four-day voyage back across the Pacific. 


There were several beautiful views, as Hawaii struck a pose to help us remember her by.

Our arrival, with hula dancers in background.

Cook Pines were planted by Capt. Cook
to supply masts for sailing ships




Rows of pineapple from the train.
The pond is a fish hatchery and the mountains are sacred burial grounds.

Our train stopped to feed the pigs.

As we departed, we could see
water bursting through a blowhole.

The tug did a little dance for us
as we began our journey back across the Pacific.

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