What vacation would be complete without being touristy, at least once? Poipu Beach is where a number of the resort hotels and fancier restaurants are located. Chris was surprised to discover she remembered a lot of the places that she had visited with her family when she was little (it had been over ten years since she'd been there last, and she could still recognize a number of landmarks well enough to know where some had once stood but had been replaced.)
Hurricane Iniki visited the Garden Isle in 1992, and a number of the businesses and homes on the coast had been destroyed in the storm, as the F-5 hurricane struck the island head-on. The Beach House Restaurant (5022 Lawai Rd. Koloa, Kauai, HI 96756 Tel:(808)742-1424) , where we ate dinner our fourth night there, is currently in its third incarnation, since the site where it originally stood was wiped clean by the hurricane. As the general manager quips, "Third time's the charm!"
At the southern tip of Kauai is a small park where a rather famous landmark resides: Spouting Horn. A blowhole formed from thousands of years of erosion into the solid igneous rock by the constant action of the sea, Spouting Horn is truly a sight to behold during higher tides and windier days, when the waves force themselves up through the blowhole to spray a fountain reaching as high as fifty feet.
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Oh yeah, getting there; Poipu and the surrounding towns are located on the southern tip of Kauai, accessible via two main highways. One starts off with over a mile of tree-lined road which forms a tunnel over the roadway. When we were there, the tunnel was still recovering from damage received during Hurricane Iniki in 1992; patches of the canopy were still in the process of regrowing, but are expected to fill in fully within a few years time.
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