February 4, 2025

We originally had plans to leave O’ahu early morning and fly to Kaua’i, but a few weeks ago I changed our flight in fear that we would not have had the chance to spend enough time in O’ahu and our check in time in Kauai wasn’t until 4:00 pm, so we took a mid afternoon flight instead, which meant we had the morning and early afternoon to continue to explore.

I was not aware until we arrived that you needed to have tickets to hike the popular spot of Diamond Head, so I looked up another close by hike on AllTrails and we headed to Moana Falls Trail.  It was about a 20 minute drive away and was a nice, moderate walk through the rainforest to a waterfall.  The hike itself was a little intimidating just because of the rockiness of the path and the rocks being wet.  I guess once you’ve been to Iceland, waterfalls aren’t as exciting as they used to be, but it was a fun way to spend the morning outdoors.

It only took us about an hour to do the hike, and so we made the 20 or so minute back to the hotel to get cleaned up, and pack our bags.  With time to spare before we had to go to the airport, our flight attendant when we landed told us that we had to go to the International Market and go to the Kona Coffee Purveyors at the back and get the black sesame danish, something I had sought out since we arrived, but just had not come to fruition, but I was determined to make it happen before we left.  We thankfully found some street parking not far away, and located the ever so popular black sesame danish, wish the guy serving us so proudly told us was the MOST POPULAR.  Unfortunately their espresso machine was down, but we still were able to enjoy a drip coffees, which they so kindly added lots of milk and sugar to mine.

Nick had found a fish restaurant down the way, not too far from the International Market that we dipped into to enjoy lunch before making our way to the airport.  We were welcomed by the most delightful staff and quickly made our choices, I feared if we had taken too long, I would have ordered everything on the menu, as it all looked wonderful. I chose the blackened mahi mahi, and Nick the Wahoo, mine was served with rice and potatoes and Nick chose the French fries (lame).  

Although we had plenty of time to spare, we decided to go ahead and make our way to the airport, as we had to return to the Turo and when we landed the airport seemed to be a little complicated to navigate.  Thankfully when we arrived, we flew out of a completely different terminal, which was very easy to navigate, so we enjoyed some time in the lounge, certainly not as nice as Charlotte’s but free food and drinks, nonetheless.

The flight to Kaua’i was the most pleasant, shortest flight I have ever been on in my life.  I could get used to that.  We were served tiny juice boxes and it was not jam packed so we were able to sit a seat apart.  We again rented a Turo, and the directions that the guy gave Nick was to take an Uber, not the Turo van, as it cost $30, said Uber was cheaper.  We found the Turo van outside and I asked him if we had to have reservations with him, he stated no, I asked him how much did it cost and he said free, okay then, why not take this guy.  Well we should not have taken that guy because it took us to a lot where the car was NOT parked.  I guess the guy we rented from runs a business through Turo and parks his cars at a completely different lot, he left that part out.  The driver stated that if he didn’t have anyone to pick up, he’d take us to that lot, but unfortunately for us, there were people to pick up that he had to take to the airport.  So we got dropped off, called and Uber and a nice man from OHIO came to our rescue.  The lot where the car was parked was only about a mile away, so in the end it ended up being a little inconvenient, but did save us some money.

One benefit of our mishap was that we did get some recommendations from the Turo driver, so after making it to our hotel and trying to go down to the beach, which proved to be way to cold, we grabbed some dinner at the Waliua Drive In, which yes, has been visited by Guy Fieri, when the girl was telling us what the locals like, I so proudly said oh yes, I’ll have that, why when she said fried chicken I thought that it was a good idea, I’ll never know.  I don’t like fried chicken, but the good news is that was served with poki and rice, so I was able to enjoy that.  Nick had the ahi katsu, which was good.  With an early morning of hiking in the morning, we decided to just relax back at the hotel room for the rest of the evening.