Sandy's travels

My friend and I flew back home on Saturday, and we brought the sun with us!  We sure had a fun time on Kauai, taking in all the sights and beautiful attractions.  We were so lucky to find a place with patio door access to the beach!  It was great. Looking back on my posts, I neglected to mention getting from Sydney to Adelaide.  This leg of my journey was aboard the Indian Pacific railroad which travels from Sydney to Perth and back.  I was fortunate in that I was able to get a cabin in Platinum class which gave me a private cabin, full size bed when made up and access to white dinner table service, tea, coffee or wine whenever!  My travel was only an overnight to Adelaide, about 24 hours. This service included a limousine pickup at my hotel, delivery to the train station, and the driver took my luggage right to check-in, and took me to where I needed to be!  Fantastic.  We left on time and the stewards and stewardesses (is that what they are called on trains?) came in and introduc

It is our last day in Kauai tomorrow.  The time seems to have flown by but we certainly went to a lot of different places (some twice, from different directions......that déjà vu feeling kicks in) and we saw a lot and experienced the islands many delights including a luau, dinner theatre featuring the show South Pacific, the Beauty of Waimea canyon, the pretty little town of Hanalai and some of the historical stories and photos in various venues.  We connected with other people here on vacation and experienced the antics of the chickens and roosters....everywhere! Today we drove up to Wailua Falls, which is actually only 4 miles from Lihue.  Another one of those twisty narrow roads, but we found it easily.  The falls are said to be really spectacular after a good rain but they were still quite pretty today.  The falls drop into a pool and fall 173 ft.  The water then feeds into the Wailua River.  Photos to follow in a separate post. We were so lucky to find this place which is a 2

This morning when we rose, one of us way earlier than the other, as has been our habit.....we saw clear sky over the mountain behind us, a good sign that it would be a perfect day to drive south to Waimea and go up to Waimea Canyon.  The drive itself didn't take long, and we soon saw our sign indicating the road to the canyon just as we were leaving Waimea.  Mostly the road up was good.  This is what I'd call a 'Bikers road'!  Twisty hairpins and C turns and S curves climbing gradually up and up.  About 2 miles before we got there we could see the clouds beginning to sift over.  We found the parking lot, facilities, cars, buses and roosters and hens, and at the end just before you start the climb up to the lookout areas, a food vendor, set up doing a booming business selling containers of fresh pineapple, fresh coconut and papaya, along with cookies, snacks and cold drinks.  We waded through the throngs and made our way to the lower viewpoint for photos.  It was cool up

Last evening we went to Smiths Luau just up the road from our accommodation.  The gates open at 5:00 giving us an hour to take a tram ride around the property with narration about the trees, wildlife and flowers on the property.  The property is located near the river and encompasses 30 acres.  It is very beautiful and lush with ponds and many varieties of trees and flowering plants. After the tram ride we still had about a half hour so we wandered around for some photo opportunities.  There were a gazillion chickens, roosters and chicks along with several peacocks (such loud raucous calls they have) and one area was enclosed with an electric fence with goats, some had kids, very cute little animals.  Once I'd filled my desire for flower photos we walked back towards the Hale where the buffet was to be held and came across six paired Nene, the protected goose species of Hawaii....the following information is courtesy of Wikipedia..... The nene is the world's rarest goose. [