Tuesday, August 15, 2017

I liked Tuesday because 1) it included penguins and 2) it involved getting to my favorite island, Kaua’i.

Earlier during our trip I had been playing at the beach with yet another one of the inflatable toys I packed for the trip, a penguin, and another vacationer commented on my cute penguin and mentioned they had real penguins at the Hyatt on the island. Say what???

It was a no-brainer that we had to visit the penguins on the island before our island hopper flight to Kaua’i later in the afternoon.

The Hyatt Regency Maui was right down the road from us and did daily feedings at 9:30 A.M. After we arrived and visited the adorable penguins, we found out that there were actually a bunch of other fun wildlife to see at the Hyatt including flamingos and swans.

I spent so much time admiring the cute birds and ogling at the lavish pools and beachside huts that the Hyatt guests got to enjoy that we ended up not having time to do much else on Maui that morning before catching our flight.

I wanted to check out Kapalua Bay before we left, since it was a recommended place to visit, so we quickly walked along this crowded beach and headed to the airport.

By late afternoon we were finally in Kaua’i and I was so thrilled! Kaua’i was even more beautiful than I remembered it and this time it wasn’t unreasonably windy, cold, or rainy.

We stayed again on the north side of the island, the greener and more lush side of the island with the towering, foggy mountains close to the roadside. The scenery on the north side of the island was so breath-taking that I half-regretted splitting our Hawaii vacation time on Maui.

We were even greeted with a gorgeous rainbow on our way back from the grocery store in Hanalei and I took it as a sign that this was going to be a good visit on the island this time around.

Although our condo didn’t have beach access, we were right off the ocean with gorgeous views out north, something we didn’t have the last time we were staying on the island.

A short walk around the corner to the condo buildings west of us and we could also see the sun setting on the iconic Bali Hai peaks of the Makana Mountain in the far distance. We had it all!

We spent the evening relaxing in our condo and eating in. We had a good reason to rest up because the next day, we were due for an early start and a long day for our much-anticipated Na’Pali Coast kayaking trip.