hawaii \\ kauai + the north shore

The island of Kauai had us at hello. Gone were the crowded beaches, tourism, and chain restaurants; replaced instead by untouched beauty, fruit stands in the back of pickups, secret beaches and uncharted rainforest. That was my favorite part of Kauai. It felt like everywhere we hiked or beached or snorkeled was just found... by us.

The north shore of Kauai, specifically in and around the town of Hanalei, boasted (in my opinion) the best beaches and snorkeling. It was awesome to see purple coral, colorful fish, crevices and huge drop offs, sea anemones and different varieties of eel-things... all right inches from your face at times! We spent a few afternoons around many different beaches that all boasted the same things: a place for the guys to play, boogie boarding, waves, secluded spots, and beautiful snorkeling. Especially after some of the longer hikes it felt so good to wind down.  

I think that all the snorkeling pictures (as well as how cool we looked in our masks) deserve their own post. Besides the fact that all the goPro pictures are on Jared's computer and he's in Seattle right now... so the underwater pics will be coming later! 

When we headed into downtown Hanalei, we thankfully took the recommendation of our guidebook and tried this little place called Shave Ice Paradise for supposedly some of the best Hawaiian shave ice on the island. The shave ice here was good (not quite as good another hut we found later in the week - more on that later :) but what really got me at this place was their Macadamia nut ice cream. Whoah. I had it a few days in a row, I'll admit. But what better place to have it?! "Hawaiian shave ice" is actually a very real thing and I didn't know that! Apparently on the mainland its just all knock-offs of processed ice and too-fake syrup. We watched them hand grind off the ice block, and some shave ice places use just fruit juices and chunks of fruit as their syrup. 

Just outside of Hanalei: maybe the most beautiful church I've ever seen. 

Also noteworthy: the sand. Everywhere. In every crevasse that you can imagine on your body. And boy was it hot. Hanalei bay was the worst. Picture courtesy of Matt who was confined to the shade by his wife as a result of his sunburn....

Yowza. Sorry, Matt.....

And how funky are these trees? They were Adam's favorite. 

One more unique beach stop along the north shore: Queen's bath.

To get to Queen's bath you had to hike down a very skinny slope through the jungle,and then maybe 1/2 a mile along the shoreline on simply rocks, really not knowing where you were going just following the ocean. But getting to this beauty, and staying while the sun was setting was probably a top 3 of the trip for all of us. It. Was. Breathtaking. A surreal and worshipful way to close off the day.

Queen's bath is not a place you want to be during the winter months or high-tide. The waves all look relatively calm in these pictures, but every once and a while a bigger one would come in and then you wanted to get back pretty quickly. It was almost reverent to be that close to the water in a totally deserted area and part of the island. It made you recognize the oceans power that much more. 

So beyond thankful for this group of people. What an amazing bunch to travel with.

And that's only slightly edited. :) It was just that beautiful. Talk about our God, the artist. 
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Coming up next on the north shore of Kauai.... the Kalalau trail hike. 10 miles of wilderness that cant be seen except by this hike or a helicopter. Stay tuned!