Kauai -

The sunrise is new every morning. I love having time to watch the sun come up over the ocean.

Flowers and Birds

I love photographing flowers as we hike -- and this year we started getting to know the birds on Kauai.  They are much more difficult to photograph so I don't have pictures of them.  The songs they sing fill the air as we hiked. Every once in a while we'd spot a gecko. On this hike I spotted the first wild orchids we've seen on the island.

 A little green gecko

 Strawberry guava was ripe and very fragrant

Ginger bloom just beginning to open

Dinner at the Sheraton before a beautiful sunset

Kauai is just not the greatest spot for my hair -- next time I'm just going to get a baseball cap and wear it. We had dinner at the Sheraton -- this is the view from our table -- no windows!

 After dinner we walked around the corner to this sunset -- on our way to the Theater. We didn't care for the production -- Trip Advisor folks led us astray for the very first time.  Owell.  The dinner and sunset were amazing.

Orchids and Water Lily blossoms

I enjoyed taking an hour to photograph the Plantation's orchids and water lilies.

Walking to the End of the Trail

We walked the beach to the end of the trail -- probably 3 miles or so. Fabulous!  These little plovers are everywhere -- they actually fly from Hawaii to the Arctic non-stop to nest. How do they fly hundreds of miles without food or rest!

 Sea turtles all along the way.

Sunrise and the Ocean

We love the beauty of the sunrise and could just sit for hours watching the surf.

Pihea Trail down to the Swamp

We had a pretty dry day at the Pihea Trail so we decided to head down into the Alakai Swamp -- the Swamp gets about 400 inches of rain a year so all of the vegetation is very unusual and a place I've wanted to see for a long time. We saw some of the unique forest birds along the way. This is also considered a rather strenuous hike because you climb up and down muddy hills, slosh through muddy trails and climb a bunch of stairs before getting to the boardwalk through the swamp. It was all worth it. We'd love to go back again.

Pausing as we climbed up the muddy hill to take a picture - Several places along the trail it's like climbing up (and on the way back -- climbing down) a wall. Up is easier.

But the vistas looking down 4000 feet to the ocean are spectacular!

The ferns along the way are pretty amazing -- Some are at least 6 feet tall.

Thankfully they built a board walk through the swamp - or we'd be up to our thighs in mud.

This is Mt. Wai'ale'ale -- one of the wettest spots on earth. It doesn't have a peak but it is usually covered in clouds. What a surprise when the clouds disappeared and we discovered it was flat on top. For years I imagined a peak. We were blessed with a very clear day.

Hiking Above Hannalei

Kevin and I drove up to Hannalei, and hiked up one of the ridges to about 1500 ft. The hike was rated moderately strenuous -- so we felt pretty good about making it to the top.