Honeymoon Day 2 - Kauai

Day 2 on Kauai brought more adventures....naturally.  We drove up to Waimea Canyon and Koke'e State Park for some absolutely staggering views of the Grand Canyon of Hawaii.  It was breathtaking, and we were shocked at how few people there were!  We poked around both places for quite some time as we just couldn't get over how beautiful it was.  

On the drive back down, we were able to see Ni'ihau, which is a privately-owned island near Kauai.  It's known as the "forbidden island".  It was sold in 1863 by King Kamehameha IV to a Scottish woman, Elizabeth Sinclair, with strict terms that it be restricted to Hawaiian people only.  Sinclair's family, the Robinsons, continue to live on the island, where they preserve the Hawaiian culture.  Tourism is prohibited.  The U.S. Navy also uses the island for weapons testing.  There are roughly 100 people who live on the island.

Once we got back to town, we explored a bit in Old Koloa town at their shops.  We found a great little food truck park and had lunch at Taco Libre! 

After lunch, we got the beach gear loaded up and headed to Shipwreck Beach.  There is a massive rock/cliff there that puts the BFR to shame (iykyk).  There was a guy up there doing some fishing, and several brave souls who ventured out to the ledge.  One guy actually did a back flip off into the water!

We found a great little hole-in-the-wall (almost quite literally!) place for dinner, called Da Crack. While the name isn't entirely appealing, the food (burrito bowls) was delicious!

Honeymoon Day 1 - Kauai

It's honeymoon time!  We had initially started planning a trip a while back to Ireland, but it was getting to be too big of a trip to plan in the timespan we had.  And once we selected a wedding date, we decided to pivot to a different location for the honeymoon.  We landed on Hawaii - specifically Kauai and Maui since the little island hopper flights are super cheap.  

In Kauai, we stayed in Poipu Beach, which is a wonderful little town.  We really loved the vibe on Kauai - not a ton of people, BUT a ton of wild chickens! It turned into quite the endearing experience with them all over the place.  We also really enjoyed the lush, tropical feel of the island.  Lots of "tree tunnels" over the roads, which was one of our favorite things.

Once we landed, we found a market and grabbed some staples for the trip and got all checked into the air bnb.  We were right on the ocean - it was a great little place, right on Baby Beach.  We ventured out immediately to scout out what was nearby.  We saw Spouting Horn and then watched the sunset from Kukui'ula Beach.  Magical!