We (Joe, Jess and I) went to Kaua’i two weeks ago. It’s called the garden isle, but we didn’t hike much or go kayaking like we should have; we spent a lot of time at the kmart helping Joe pick out sunshades. Ah, well.
The first night, we camped at Salt Pond Beach Park. Recommendation: don’t stay there unless you like chickens. Chickens waking you up by doing the “cock-a-doodle-doo” thing every 20 minutes starting at 3:30am until they really get going at about 5am, at which point you might as well get up. After staying at this beach park in the company of chickens, the three of us decided to have chicken as part of every meal for the rest of the trip.
From this beach park, we could see Ni’ihau, the forbidden Hawaiian island that only has about 200 people living on it (which is off the electrical grid and rather isolated from the rest of civilization). This view of Ni’ihau is taken from Waimea pier (not too far down the road from the beach park):