With this adventure coming to a close soon, I’ve just spent two days on Kauai, the garden island. 

When the Hawaiian islands were formed millions of years ago, Kauai was the first. It sits at the northwest of Oahu, an advantageous position for a slightly more temperate climate with verdant mountains. 

For Thursday, I chose the cruise line’s “Best of Kauai” which included two of the sights I’d wanted to see most, Waimea Canyon and Fern Grotto. After an hour bus ride to the south side of Kauai, the tour arrived at the Waimea Canyon overlook. 

Disputed legend has it that Samuel Clemens called Waimea “the Grand Canyon of the Pacific”. If he’d said it, he was correct – views all the way down to the Pacific. 

We stopped at Spouting Rock, a lava tube which spouts seawater, then stopped for a very nice buffet lunch in Poipu. 

Our next stop was the highlight of the day, a boat ride up the Wailua River to the Fern Grotto. The Smith family has been running a boat ride up the Wailua for almost a hundred years – pioneering the riverboats now used in the early 1960s. 

It felt like a real-life Disney Jungle Cruise, which was appropriate as the 2010s movie starring The Rock was filmed on the Wailua River. Indiana Jones’ escape to a sea plane in the beginning of Raiders of the Lost Ark was filmed here too. 

We reached the Fern Grotto and were serenaded by Hawaiian musicians, who then accompanied us on the boat ride back, with hula dancers. 

If you come to Kauai, do not miss the Fern Grotto boat ride experience!

Wanting to do something off-ship for dinner, I walked to Duke’s Barefoot Bar in the Marriott Vacation Club for a burger and a couple local brews. 

For Friday, I’d selected a hop-on hop-off of some of the attractions on the east side of Kauai. The highlight was a visit to the Kilohani Plantation, a one-time sugarcane plantation which now has a number of tourist attractions including a train ride. 

I enjoyed learning about all of the agriculture now grown on the former sugarcane fields. And we stopped halfway through to feed horses and pigs 😁. 

While my adventure isn’t quite over yet, this was the last “new” island, and I couldn’t have had a better time on lovely Kauai. On my way to Oahu now, where the journey home will begin.