Honeymoon Deux

A local tipped us off to this secluded beach. We spent a couple mornings, afternoons and night there and had the beach to ourselves, alone, a lot. It was absolutely beautiful and had the best snorkeling we have ever done. I would tell you where it is, but I am not going to share our secret.

A rock took these pictures for us. Like I said, no one was around

Sunday morning before church. Walking down to Queen's Bath

Monday morning we hiked along the Na Pali coast on the Kalalau trail. This is us at the trail head, not that you can tell because our camera is kind of lame. We have been wanting to hike this since our honeymoon. The only way to see the Na Pali coast is by foot, helicopter or boat. We tried all three this time around. The hike was gorgeous.

About a mile in

Two miles into the hike we landed at Hanakapiai Beach where we had a little picnic

After Hanakapiai Beach we hiked to miles into the mountains to Hanakapiai Falls; a 300 waterfall coming down cliffs into a pool below.

Of course we had to jump in the chilly water and go swimming. It was very refreshing, and kind of enchanting to be floating on our backs looking up at the cliffs and waterfall. Definitely one of our favorite activities.

Looking up at the falls

The church at Hanalei

Mark and I like to break the law on vacation. We snuck through all the fences and signs that said, "Danger" down the old deserted trail to the bottom of Wailua Falls.

We spent a few hours of our vacation at time share presentations, and barely escaped. They almost got us. But, we got free tickets for helicopter adventures and sunset dinner cruises.

First time in a helicopter for both of us. The scenery was indescribable.

So I am not even going to try.

After our helicopter tour we hiked down to Kipu falls where we did some wicked rope swinging and jumped off of the top of the falls. I loved the rope swing. It gives me an excuse to scream as loud as I can and an opportunity to be sincerely scared for my life. I don't know what is wrong with me, but I actually enjoy the feeling of fear.

I don't think many tourists know about the falls and there weren't many people there. The picture above is Mark jumping off the rocks. When I jumped you better believe he was holding my hand and jumping at the same time. Wow

Snorkeling on secret beach

We swam with schools of fish, sea turtles, eels,

and sting rays. The underwater world is

so colorful and mysterious. Mark was fearless and pulled me along everywhere.

School of fish

Sea turtle

Mark with some fish to the right. They are pretty hard

make out in this picture

Thursday night on our sunset dinner boat cruise along the Na Pali coast

Can you see me?

This is an attempt to duplicate a picture we had taken on our honeymoon in Waimea Canyon. If you look down a couple of posts you can see the original.

Mark says I am dramatic. I say enthusiastic. Whichever it is it leads me to frequently say things like, "This is the happiest I have ever been" or "This is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen" or "This is the most pain I have ever felt" or "I have NEVER been this tired". A lot of things seem to be the best, most and worst.

But, last week actually may have been the best week of our lives. This is Bekah writing, and I feel bad speaking for Mark, but he has expressed the same many times since we came home.

Seven days and nights on Kauai, just the two of us. We decided to spend our vacation in the same place we had our honeymoon. I think our week was even better than our honeymoon, which was hard to top.

I was so anxious about leaving Russ Russ for the first time, but he was great with my mom, or my mom was great with him. They hit it off, which put me at ease, and we were able to really relax. Thank you a million times mom. And thank you a million times mom and dad Gardner for our condo.