This morning we are hurting all over, with one of us being barely able to lift the leg to walk due to a muscle overextension during the fall on the previous day. One set of clothes and shoes are also irrecuperably dirtied with us making a decision to throw away a pair of shoes and pants with the rest being scrubbed every day during the reminder of the trip to a semblance of cleanliness. We eat a lot at breakfast to gather some energy as we have a lot planned – how much we will be able to do only our muscles know.
During breakfast as usual the birds are surrounding us, white-rumped shama are everywhere as well as zebra doves.
And chicken of course. We find as we are washing our clothing and shoes outside a place where the chicken are taking mud baths and they are not happy about it and let us know.
Our first stop today is at Shipwreck Beach from where we plan to take the Maha’ulepu Beach Trail. It is a good choice to start the day as it is mostly flat as far as we know and we can get an idea on how well our legs are performing after yesterday. We are lucky and we find a parking spot in the small parking area and soon we are on our way skirting the beach on the well maintained trail.
Soon we reach the end of the beach and we are confronted with a choice, either climb a cliff with some views or continue at the base of the cliff. While pondering the choice we explore the beach and find quite a few crabs that are running around between the rocks or waiting on top of them…for somethng.
We decide to climb the cliffs using the trail and we make it unscathed. It is for certain worth it with some great views of the sea and our first rhizocretion. a root cast from an ancient tree which looks very interesting.
Following the cliffs we see quite a few White-tailed Tropicbirds that seem to enjoy this stretch of cliffs. We also see lots of algae moved around by the sea but some of them seem to be mobile so we zoom in on them and they are no algae – they are Green Sea Turtles. So cool to see them in the water as they are taken by the waves towards the shore.
The views continue to be exceptional and we have to stop every few feet to take another photo.
The rhizocretions continue as we follow the trail and it is quite interesting to see the different shapes they can take. Especially when viewed from below if the tides excavated them it makes it easy to imagine how the roots were looking initially. However there are plenty more common interesting rock formations that we see as we continue along the scenic shore.
The trail continues parallel to the shore and farther away. However it is quite level and easy even for our tired feet except when we have to bow and sneak through tree tunnels. It is also shady which is good as it is getting relatively hot when you are far from the shore and the cooling breeze.
Luckily we are never far from the shore and a few times we can even access the tide pools and small beaches. And in the tide pools we can see small fishes, most of them being Blackspot Sergeants.
The trail passes the least developed part of the southern shore of Kauai. This makes each beach quite wild and fun to explore.
We decide that due to the heat and our muscles hurting to turn around at the Waiopili Heiau about one mile and a bit into the trail. There isn’t that much left to see but you can see it was an ancient constructions from the boulders accumulated in the area.
Even now there are people bringing offerings to the heiau but we are distracted by the golf course where we see…can it be…yes it can…a couple of nenes. We were not hoping to see the endemic Hawaiian goose on this trail so we are quite to see this life bird for us.
Returning we take the more direct inland trail which is less used and looks like a jungle trail complete with heat and humidity. We are quite happy when we reach the car and A/C and now we have to decide where to go to eat lunch.
Our first choice near Poipu Beach is way to popular with the line going around the building and people waiting for 45-60 minutes outside so we decide to explore other options.
In the end we stop to eat at Bubba Burgers another famous Kauai eatery but after a long wait what we get doesn’t really seem to be worth the wait. It is reasonably good but not something special at least in our opinion.
