We started the morning with a 90-minute massage in a cabana on the ocean lawn; it’s one of our regular activities here, and it was as good this year as it has been in the past.

After the massage, we drove to Hanalei for lunch at The Dolphin. We were lucky and found a parking spot right outside the restaurant, with a pleasant view of Nāmolokama Mountain and its waterfalls.

Our table had a view of the Hanalei River, and every so often we saw kayakers or stand-up paddleboarders go by. It looked like fun, so I checked to see if there were any nearby outfitters – there were several. We decided to sign up for Kayak Hanalei‘s Friday morning tour to the mouth of the river, which includes a bit of ocean snorkeling, a picnic on the beach, and is supposed to be good for someone with no kayaking experience (me!).

We walked down to the Ching Young Village shopping center, which is a fun place to visit; there’s a t-shirt shop which silkscreens shirts while-you-wait, several swim and surf shops, a music store, and even a real supermarket where we picked up some sunscreen. On the way there, Diane got intercepted by a cosmetics salesperson from the Miraval store and was treated to a free eye tightening treatment – his patter was very smooth, there was a small difference in the appearance of her eyes, and we walked out without spending $400 for a year’s supply (we didn’t even get a special offer to encourage us, just a polite goodbye).

Our next stop was the farmers’ market in Waipa, about two miles north of Hanalei. We had to wait about ten minutes to get past some road construction, but then it was smooth sailing. We picked up some local oranges, tomatoes, kale, and salad greens and spent a few minutes talking to an artist before heading back to the Foodland near the Westin to pick up wine and chicken for dinner.

We’ve done most of our shopping at home at Lunardi’s Markets ever since we moved to Los Gatos 40 years ago. The produce is great; the selection and prices are good; they even have a senior discount. And they have a butcher counter, so I can get exactly what I need. That’s not the case at Foodland here; the smallest package of chicken on offer had four breasts, far more than we need for the rest of our stay here, and there wasn’t a butcher to be found. So I bought half a rotisserie chicken instead. To their credit, they did have a reasonable selection of wine!

We had dinner on our balcony, went for a dip in the hot tub afterwards, and are continuing to relax. :-)

We started today with a trip to the Princeville Botanical Gardens for their “Chocolate and Walking Tour”, which included several fruit tastings (mango, lychee, langsat, papaya, apple banana, and more), some of the honey they produce on site, and six chocolates from around the world (including one made from the cacao trees on site, though the final production is done by Wild Kauai Chocolate in Kapaa).

Our guide Zoe was very knowledgable about the plants on property, as well as leading us through the chocolate tasting. She even convinced me to try the apple banana – I ate the whole (small) piece and enjoyed it, though I still don’t see bananas of any kind being part of my regular diet.

The weather was great – warm, dry, not too windy, and sunny with plenty of shade available.

I would have bought a jar of honey if we weren’t doing carry-on; we did buy a sampler of six dark chocolate bars from Vietnam. I’d take the tour again; I enjoyed it more than the one we did a couple of years ago at Lydgate Farms, and that’s high praise indeed.

After the tour, we drove to Kilauea for lunch, which was ahi wraps from Kilauea Fish Market (one of our favorite places to eat on Kauai). Then we came back to the resort and relaxed for the rest of the day.