Hawaii - Big Island, Lanai, Kauai

Musts -
Big Island
Visit Lava, Observatories at Mauna Kea Lanai
Rent a Jeep or other 4WD vehichle to explore desolate beaches
Kauai
Hike in Waimea Canyon, the "Grand Canyon of the Pacific."

Quick Tips:

Big Island: Saddle Road is frequently listed as a road that will void your car rental contract. While very bumpy it is a paved road and very passable in a car. Ask the car rental company if their cars have any sort of tracking device (have only heard of this in one state, not Hawaii). If not, feel free to drive Saddle Road without worrying about damage to vehichle.

Lanai: Stay at the Lodge of Koele or Hotel Lanai to get away from the crowds on Lanai. The only crowded place is the Malele Bay Resort.

Kauai: Upon arriving, have your partner go get the bags, while you get the rental car and pick them up curbside, no messing with bags on the shuttle bus.

Best Way To Get Around:

Unless you are a sit at the resort person, a car is really needed to explore on the islands. A 4WD is a must on the island of Lanai.

The Lodge at Koele serves some very, very good food.

For lunch one day we had a venison pastrami melt. There is a local deer population on the island from which they make the pastrami from. This was one of the best sandwiches in my life--delicious pastrami, melted cheese, and sautéed onions on a warm roll. WOW. Good food.

The Lodge at Koele also has a formal dining room where jackets are required for men at night. We had two appetizers: lobster salad and something else not memorable. The lobster salad was incredible, with huge chunks of lobster. The two entrees we had were excellent as well. I had grilled medallions of venison over a vegetable root hash with huckleberry sauce. My wife dined on the grilled lobster. All was excellent.

Henry Clay’s Rotisserie was packed and the wait was one hour. We were hungry so we quickly walked to the Blue Ginger Café just before they closed at 8pm and ordered some plate dinners, and man, I like these! Hawaiian plate lunches/dinners are made up of a scoop (or two) or rice, a scoop of macaroni salad and will usually be offered with 1-3 choices of meals. The BBQ choices are always good, tonight we had the fresh mahi mahi.

After dinner walked back to the Hotel Lanai to wait for the shuttle to the Lodge of Koele. I really was interested in whether or not Clay’s was special. I spoke with three groups of diners who all said the same thing, basically, "Yeah it’s good, but $26 bucks for a rotisserie chicken is a lot of money." I asked if the chicken was done with some sort of island flair, and I was very disappointed to find out that it is simply rotisserie chicken, nothing special.

After we arrived at KOA (Kona Airport) about 3pm we were starved. We headed to the town of Kailua-Kona, which is 10-15 minutes south of KOA, and dined at Oodles of Noodles.

We split an appetizer of the Hana-style smoked pork spring rolls with sweet chili dipping sauce, which were quite tasty ($8). My wife had shrimp pad Thai and it was quite good as well ($12). I had a house specialty, the Kona-style tuna noodle casserole with wok-seared ahi tuna, a shiitake cream sauce, button-like pasta, and some crisp onions placed on top. A GREAT DISH ($16).

Directions/location/hours at: Oodles Kona.

Café Sibu serves Indonesian fare and is located in the Banyan Court Mall which is seaside in Kailua-Kona.

Café Sibu has a very laid back atmosphere with plastic patio chairs, and the restaurant is tucked into the interior of the mall. It's not the most romantic spot, but the food makes up for the lack of aesthetics.

Sibu allows one to choose a la carte from the menu or choose one of their combination plates. Combo plates allows one to try two entrees rather than just one, a choice I always like.

I had the Sibu Special for $14.95 that included any two entrees off of the menu and choice of satay. My satay choice was the shrimp satay, and the two entrees were spicy pork and ayam panggang pedis which came with my choice of rice--I chose jasmin. My wife dined on the beef jaal frezy with brown rice. All dishes were terrific and really fresh. All dishes also came with a small side of cucumber salad, which provided a cool contrast to the spicy/firey taste of the Indonesian entrees.

The shrimp satay was cooked just perfectly; many times shrimp that are grilled are overcooked and dry, but not these--they were nice and juicy, served with a peanut sauce on top.

The spicy pork is trimmed boneless pork in a cumin, corriander, onion, and garlic sauce that is simmered with lots of hot green chillies. The ayam panggang pedis are grilled boneless chicken thighs marinated in black and hot red peppers, garlic, dark soy, and lemon juice. The beef jaal frezy is boneless beef in a tangy Indonesian ginger-corriander sauce that is made with sweet onions, tomatoes, garlic, and black pepper.

Fresh juices and lemonade, as well as alcohol, are served. The only drawback is that service is sometimes slow.

After a good strenuous hike at Waimea Canyon, we ate here twice we liked it so much. The 1st day, I had the fresh mahi mahi sandwich and my wife had the fresh ahi sandwich. Both fresh, grilled and good!!!

On the 2nd day, we both had taro burgers. I have never liked taro (a starch vegetable) but Waimea Bakery used marinades and sauces to make the taro burger very enjoyable. I'm a confirmed carnivore, but loved this sandwich and I think you will too (just don't expect the bite/texture of a beef burger as taro is very soft). The Waimea Bakery also offers rolls and pastries.

Having just been to A Pacific Cafe restaurant in Kapaa, I can confirm that only the original Kapaa (east side of Kauai in the Safeway shopping center) location is open, the other locations on Maui and the Big Island are closed. Rumor at the bar was that the owner got a divorce, had money issues, blah blah blah, hence the other locations had to close.

We went twice to A Pacific Cafe. In our opinion, the appetizers were weak but the main courses were EXCELLENT.
Appetizers ordered:
Deep-fried curry oysters with marscapone and scallion sauce. The scallion sauce was great, but the marscapone was not needed and the oysters were overcooked.
Ahi and hamachi sashimi with Maui onion dressing. This was good and refreshing.
Steamed baby lobster shu mai (dumplings) with tangerine vinaigrette and jicama melon relish. We were drooling at the sounds of this one, but was very blah.
Foie gras spring roll with scallops. It was good, but not as good as it sounded.

Entrees:
The "original" wok charred mahimahi. Mahimahi had a garlic sesame crust and was served with a lime ginger beurre blanc, and also Asian stir fried veggies. It had a GREAT, intense lime flavor. I liked it alot.
"Imu Style" slow-braised duck with caramel lilikoi sauce and purple Okinawan sweet potato. My wife liked this dish so much she had it both nights. The duck was incredible as well as the bright purple sweet potato. YUM.
"Mongolian"-style rack of lamb with Chinese black bean Maui onion Cabernet sauce. It was served with a potato gallete and baby bok choy. WOW, one of the best dishes I've had in years.

Reservations are recommended after 7pm; we were there at 5:30pm and 6pm without reservations, but it filled up fast.

We had landed at LIH late morning and were very hungry due to an early morning flight with no breakfast. While driving to Poipu from LIH, we noticed the No. 1 Chinese & BBQ restaurant.

I'm a big fan of Hawaiian plate lunches, which usually cosist of a scoop or two of rice, a scoop of macaroni salad, and then a choice of 1-4 items to go with your scoops. A typical BBQ plate lunch will consist of a thin slice of BBQ short ribs, a thin terriyaki steak, and some BBQ chicken. The BBQ plate lunch I dined on at No. 1 was the best I've had on any island so far. My wife agrees.

A few nights later we were having trouble deciding where to eat for dinner. We found ourselves near the No. 1 again and thought, "Why not, it was great the first time." We ordered an order of the boneless spare ribs, 1/2 roast duck and an order of rice. The duck was some of the finest we've had and we eat a lot of duck everywhere we go. The boneless spareribs were smoked and then served with a Chinese sweet sauce over them, they were just great. The bill came to slightly over $20 and the amount of food served could have easily fed a family of four.

We took the leftovers (which we usually never do on vacation, but our hotel had a fridge in it), bought some Hawaiian rolls at the bakery the next day and made sandwiches that were very good.

No. 1 is not glamorous, but if you want excellent yet cheap food, this is the spot. They do offer a buffet which many customers purchased, but we did not try it. One can also order a la carte off of a menu.

Hours: 7 days a week 10am-10pm

The observatory at Mauna Kea? Sounds good to me--lets go! Tip one: take Waikoloa Road as a shortcut to Saddle Road. The concierge at the Hilton suggested going all the way up to Waimea before coming south to Saddle. Tip two: Saddle is a long and bumpy road but fine to take any car on (forget what your rental agreement says). Tip three: you know you are getting close to the turnoff for the Mauna Kea observatories when you pass a small military base with an airstrip--the turnoff is near mile marker 28. Total travel time from the Hilton to the observatories was about 45 minutes (I was driving fairly fast over the speed limit). They had 6 very, very high power telescopes, but only three were set up. I think someone had moved one because it really did not focus on anything, but the other two were incredible. One was turned to Jupiter; you could clearly see almost all of Jupiter’s moons and the “eye” of Jupiter. The other was focused on the three-star belt for the constellation Orion. The three stars sit within a nebula (think spider web effect)--just stunning. It is well worth the trip up here even though it is cold (45 degrees) and very windy. They also have some small displays set up inside a building and serve hot chocolate.

It was a good thing we set an alarm because we had an appointment at 8:15am with the Flumin Da' Ditch people up in the town of Hawi (pronounced Havi). In an effort to help irrigate sugar can crops, a 21-mile, 4-foot deep by 4-foot wide ditch was dug up in the mountains to help direct the intense mountain rain water to crops. Flumin Da' Ditch takes you on a rubber kayak through 3+ miles of this ditch. The company gives you a briefing about why and how it was built. You then take a 4-wheel drive van ride with the rafts up to the launching point in the ditch. It was raining when we started and the jungle was very green. After going through some tunnels we came out in the bright sunshine. There were just eight of us in two rafts with our guide Tidah. Tidah is a local whose father is a fourth-generation Palonino (Hawaiian cowboy). She was lots of fun and I highly recommend her. Because our group was so far ahead of the other, she stopped our kayaks and got out at one point to pick some fresh guavas for the group. YUM! And floating on the water through the jungle in the sunshine eating a fresh-picked guava . . . ahhhhhhhh . . . Hawaii!!!!! The actual kayak trip lasts just shy of 2 hours. A picture and details are at: www.flumindaditch.com

Our dive boat was departing from the harbor just north of Kilua-Kona at 4pm, so we had to get going. My wife forgot her regulator in the room. The pain in the a_ _ trams/boats were too slow, so she walked and it still took 13 minutes. Our late afternoon dive was tremendous, the reef was preparing for night, and you could hear the whales calling in the water. We got up on the boat just in time to see the sun set. When it is dark, the dive boat sinks high power lights to the bottom and turns them on. Plankton come, fish come, and the hope is that manta rays will come to feed on the highly concentrated plankton that are attracted to the lights. After two hours, there were still no mantas, so we just watched the planes take off from KOA as we were within a ½ mile of it. The divemaster decided that it would be just a night dive. We saw lots of lobsters (slippers as well), crabs, and eels. The eels have also become accustomed to dining on the fish that are attracted to the lights. It is pretty neat to see some 4- to 6-foot eels swimming vertically in this shaft of light trying to snag a fish. When we got back onboard this time, there was a campfire smell. Some brush fires were occurring in the hills and it almost looked like the lava on the hillside at Volcanoes National Park. By the time we got back to the harbor it was almost 10pm and many restaurants had closed so we grabbed sandwiches from a supermarket. Man food tastes great after diving!

We took the south route from the Hilton Waikoloa Village (HWV) to Volcanoes National Park (VNP). I’ve read/been told that the north route is faster, but the views are stunning when traveling the south route. I highly recommend the south route on your way TO VNP, not back from VNP--the south route only takes 30 minutes more than the north route. Just south of Kilua-Kona is Craig’s which serves hot malassadas--the Portuguese "doughnuts." Only plain here, no filled ones like Leonard’s in Honolulu. There is also a malassada place in this quaint town called Naalehu on the south shore. Arrive at VNP and drive to the lava viewpoint. The lava was running like the oil in the opening of the Beverly Hillbillies ("up come a bubblin’ crude"). Very HOT!!! I thought all was fine, but then looked back over the cooled lava humps we had hiked on to get to where we were, THERE WAS RED LAVA BENEATH THE HUMPS WE HAD JUST WALKED ON!!! No wonder the ranger was standing almost 50 yards from where we were. I was not comfortable with this and we quickly scampered back to safer ground. We went to the vents, saw some Ne Ne, the state bird of HI. We also hiked a neat trail for 2 ½ hours. We took the north route home--did that ever stink! So much construction led to many one-lane only roads where you had to wait for a long time. The trip back to HWV took over 4 hours.

We drove off road to Polihua Beach on the NW tip of Lanai that you see when flying in. On the way there you drive through an ironwood forest where all you see is Ironwood trees, nothing else. When you are in the forest, stop your Jeep, turn off the engine, and just listen. I love the sound of the wind through the "pines." You’ll also drive through "Garden of the Gods," a plantless red-earthed area with strange rock formations. It's very weird, you kind of feel as though you are on Mars.

After the "gardens," you start to descend to the beach and see the island of Molokai in the distance. We arrived, drove up on the sand, and parked our Jeep. AHHHHHHHH! It was only us, NO ONE ELSE! Just as we laid our towels down, my wife exclaimed, "Whales!!!!!" Only ¼ mile off shore was a mother and her young calf that was just delirious--spouting, breaching, and slamming his head into the ocean. The show lasted 40 minutes--we just oohhhed and ahhhhed. Every other hour or so, a Jeep would come down to the beach, the people would get out, walk around for about 5 minutes then drive off back to town, so we had the beach all to ourselves for the most part. Much to the relief of my wife, we made a leisurely trip back on the rough road (no 20-foot plume of red dust behind the Jeep this time). It took 30 minutes to get back to the Lodge at Koele from the beach.

We headed off to Shipwreck Beach, which is a really poor beach compared to the wide Polihua, but you will find a lot of people here, as the road is paved almost all the way to the beach. Most people are too lazy to make the rough drive to Polihua. There is a large ship that still stands which ran aground on a reef, hence the name Shipwreck Beach.

My wife decided she didn't want to go 4-wheeling withme, and preferred to lay by the pool at the lodge which had only one person there. I took my bad boy Jeep and went on the Munro Trail--a 9.8-mile trail that goes up and along the old ridge of the island’s long-extinct volcano. It is a really rough drive, but well worth it, as, while on the ridge, you shoulder the island and get to see all sides of it. The trail has hairpin turns, gravel washout areas, and steep inclines/declines. I flew through it twice and was completely dusty/dirty, but fully satisfied--what fun!

There is a hard-packed trail along the beach and I highly recommend you to stay on it. I decided that my Jeep could go anywhere and I ventured out on the beach. The sand here is very, very loose and I found us slowly slipping sideways to the water on the steep incline of the beach. Mierde!, I thought. I tried to back up--no go. I tried to get some momentum to make it up the beach slope to the hard-packed sand--no go. So I just stopped the Jeep and walked around a bend in front of me. There looked to be some harder packed sand with rocks in it further up, so I eased the Jeep on this semi-hard packed surface. I spied a hard-packed lookout above us, backed up, and got a good head of steam up, and made my way up the slope to the hard pack. We really started to slow down and just when I thought we were going to get stuck again, we popped over the vegetation at the top to land on the hard pack. Later, when talking to Kayak John (at Lanai EcoCenter where I rented the Jeep from), he mentioned he rented a 4-wheel drive Suburban to a couple who decided to do the same stupid move I did, only they got stuck in the water which eventually washed away the Suburban. Cha-Ching! "Ummm . . . can I charge the Suburban to my credit card?!" He also advised me that there is a $5,000 possible fine for going beyond the vegetation onto the beach. LUCKY, LUCKY me. Do not drive beyond the vegetation at the edge of the beach.

We arrived at Seasport Divers which is very close to the Sheraton for our afternoon dive. We saw almost 50 spinner dolphins as we headed out of the harbor, in addition to a few whales. We dove right off of the Sheraton at two sites: Stone House and the Caverns. The Caverns were the highlight--we saw turtles, eels, and lots of octopi. Our divemaster swam up to the group with one wrapped on her arm--it inked and sped off in my direction. I put my hand out and cupped its head in my palm, where it rested for a second then realized it was not "safe," inked me, and swam off. I think they are my favorite creature to observe under the sea.

The only highlight of Stone House was a sand eel, Gobi, and a small lion fish.

We were on the road early and we got to WC park at 8:45am to do an almost two-hour hike to Waipo’o Falls(href="http://adamschneider.net/kauai2002/source/p3070261.htm">picture of Waipo'o Falls). While the falls were beautiful, the rim that you hike along was the real highlight for us.

Go early as the trail can get crowded.

If staying at the Hilton Waikoloa, sit on the lawn in front of the Palace Tower (the bay) to watch a beautiful sunset. We got back to the room and I mentioned we should watch the sunset with our karma champagne. My wife loves champagne and sunsets so it was pretty easy to convince her. We also took along some passion fruit/guava juice. Like a mimosa, we created the "Waikoloa Sunset"--very delicious. The sun setting in the bay in front of the palace tower was great.

On Lanai, take a nice easy drive down to Kaumalapa’u Harbor. You will have it to yourself or maybe share it with just a few locals fishing. Oh yeah, there are more whales too, and we never get tired of seeing them.

On Kauai, the road that exits from the Kauai Sheraton (Poipu area) has a sea wall right alongside the ocean. Great place to park your car and watch the sunset while the waves break 20' from your car.

Dollar is the only major rental car company on the island. However, I really dislike monopolies, and after much searching I found Adventure Lanai EcoCentre (ALE), phone: 808/565-7373.

Dollar wanted $140 per day for a 4WD vehicle, and you still could not go where you pleased. The ALE has Jeep Wranglers for $101 per day with unlimited miles. For that rate, they include snorkel gear for everyone in the Jeep, a boogie board, and a small cooler to bring your picnic lunch/drinks along. For only $29 they will strap a kayak to the top so that you can explore the secluded shorelines you get to in their Jeep.

ALE is also another option for bikes, kayaking tours, and scuba diving on Lanai.

UA flight SFO-KOA departed at 11:15am, and was slated to arrive at 2:30pm. The flight was severely overbooked and UA was offering $600 in vouchers and a trip to HNL, but they could not guarantee KOA arrival on the same day. D_ mn! My wife never wants to take advantage when we are on our way to a destination. Twelve-hundred dollars worth of vouchers would have gone a long way towards our summer vacation(s). As people were boarding this flight, a mother and her daughter had seats that were five rows apart, the young daughter sat next to my wife and was crying. My wife introduced herself as a teacher of the fourth grade. The girl immediately smiled and said she was in the third grade and was looking forward to fourth grade. Man, how different I was. If I had been sitting next to a teacher at that age, I would have cringed and maybe started to cry--I would not have been happy about it! :)

I thought for a second and then offered to switch seats with the mom so she could sit next to her daughter--you know the good karma polite thing to do. The mom and the daughter were very appreciative. The second leg (even though it was longer) was not near as tortuous. I must have gotten my fourth wind by then. During the flight the cabin played the "halfway to Hawaii" game where you try to guess at what time the plane will be exactly halfway from SFO to KOA. My wife made a gallant attempt, I tried to sleep, and the mother and daughter worked for almost ½ an hour on the problem. Turns out the mother and daughter nailed the time and wpn a bottle of champagne. The mother walked up to me and gave me the bottle of champagne for switching seats with her--see, good karma does pay off--sometimes almost immediately!