Along for the ride: Poipu, Kauai

To escape the storms and give ourselves a much needed shot of sunshine, we take off to Kauai. It's been awhile since we were last in the San Jose Airport and several changes are obvious:

Mini dog park

Robot info kiosk

Homeward bound lei Kauai pups

Our plane is at the gate

and we are off into the dawn above Silicon Valley

About five hours later we land at Lihue, pick up a rental car, and stop at Costco for provisions and a snack. Then back to the airport to pick up Suzy and Jamie. Lunch at the Kauai Beer Company, and then to our Poipu vacation condo.

Costco's the same but the backdrop is more dramatic

More Kauai lei pups at Brew Pub

First Kauai sunset from the condo lanai

Morning are my favorite time in Hawaii. There's Kona coffee, fresh pineapple, papayas and wonderful sea breezes. Besides the whales are here and great fun to watch. We delight in watching one young whale jumping clear out of the water over and over, probably impressing Mom how much he can jump.

Morning on our lanai

Test of a new cell camera fish-eye

Swells hitting the rocks in front of the condo

The day is too nice to just hang out at the condo, so we pack up and head to the main beach in Poipu.

Poipu Beach Park

Our chairs & umbrella

Sailing canoe at Poipu Beach

Ahhh - it was worth all the trouble getting here

As the others head out snorkeling, I stay with our stuff and just soak in the ambiance. The locals birds come very close, probably looking for handouts. In an epiphany, I discover the answer to an age old question:

Zebra doves are common

Why does the chicken walk across the road?

To see the chicks at the beach!

In the late afternoon we drive to the Allerton Garden Visitors Center for their Sunset tour. This estate has an interesting history stretching back before European contact. In 1885, the Hawaiian Queen Emma inherited the Lawai-kai Valley, where the estate is located. After the death of her husband, King Kamehameha IV, she lived in cottages on the hillside overlooking the valley and the ocean. She initiated the gardens by planting mangoes, bamboo, bougainvillea, and much more. Some of these plants can still be seen gracing the hillside. In 1899, the lower valley was conveyed to Alexander McBryde. Then later in 1938, McBryde sold the property to Robert Allerton, the only son of a wealthy Chicago family.

Robert Allerton was interested in landscape architecture. In his many travels, he met the young architectural student John Gregg, who become his lifelong partner. They immediately started planning the estate's formal gardens as well as including their collection of classic statuary. In the 1960's Allerton helped establish a tropical botanical garden for the United States and later gifted a part of his land to the new institution enabling the creation of the McBryde Garden.

After Allerton's death, John Gregg inherited the estate and continued to live there. After he passed away in 1986, the estate was left in trust and eventually became under the management of the National Tropical Botanical Gardens.

We wait at the Visitors Center for our tour

Full papaya tree

This tour looks like it's going to be fun

While waiting, we wander around the gardens surrounding the Visitors Center. Soon our guide John gathers the group. He starts off by showing us breadfruit, a Polynesian diet stable.

Ti plant - Cordyline furticosa

Breadfruit

John describes how breadfruit is prepared for eating

We then board a small tour bus for a short ride into the Allerton Garden.

Overview of the Lawai-kai valley

Date palm

Unofficial greeter asks for treats

The array of tropical flowers and plants is almost overwhelming at first.

A type of Heliconia

Orchid clings to tree with its roots

Shell Ginger

The first stop is to an "outdoor room," a landscape architecture concept which the Allertons help pioneer. As with many of their installations, this room comes with a beautiful reflecting pool. This outdoor room is still used for parties and events

The next stop is at another long reflecting pool.

Wide walkways enable us to wander from one room to the next.

We have company

Top of water fall

John's birthday present to Robert

John points out that many of the showy tropical flowers are actually brackets holding the much smaller and less obvious real flowers.

Two small white flowers peeping out of their bracket

John shows us the bracket/flowers

Torch Ginger

We next come to a long line of Moreton Bay fig or Australian banyan trees. These trees have striking buttress roots that are so large they dwarf us. These trees also have the distinction of appearing in a scene from the first of Hollywood's Jurassic Park movies.

Of all the wonderful fountains we see at the Allerton Garden, the most fascinating one is the Heart Fountain. By using repeating serpentine walls along with small drop pools in it's construction, the water flows in beats mimicking the rhythm of the human heart.

The next long pathway takes us through a bamboo forest on our way to the main house. Here John shows us a most unusual fruit, that seems to smile at us showing off a toothy edible grin. (Sorry - none of us can remember the name of this fruit).

Bamboo forest

Edible teeth

Two large stone Asian sea creatures mark the entrance to the main house. The house we see is the third rebuild after storms destroyed the previous ones. In fact, we can still see the water marks left behind from Hurricane Iniki, which devastated the valley and much of Kauai in general. Queen Emma was smart to build her cottages high on the hillside to avoid the tidal surges from major storms.