It was raining when we got up this morning. The forecast predicted more of the same all day, but the forecast for the South Shore was friendlier, so we got in the car and headed that way, taking HI-51 South for the first time this trip so we could see a bit of new territory.

Our route (as suggested by the driving guide app) took us past the airport, past the cruise terminal and Nawiliwili Harbor, and onto Hulemanu Road, where we stopped at the Menehune Fishpond Outlook. The Menehune were here before the Hawaiians, and they are credited with building the fishpond in a single night (probably not true!).

We returned to the main highway for a few miles before turning south through the Tree Tunnel to Kōloa, where the Hawaiian sugar industry started. The chimney and ruins of the Old Sugar Mill of Kōloa is a National Historic Landmark, and there’s a sculpture honoring the laborers along with an 8-panel history of the sugar industry (completed about a decade before the industry left Hawaii forever).

We had lunch at the Kauai Island Brewing Company in the Kōloa Village shops and followed it with shave ice from The Fresh Shave in Old Kōloa Town – there are a lot of restaurants and shops for such a small town!

Our next stop was Prince Kuhio Park, the birthplace of Hawaii’s first Native Hawaiian Congressman, Prince Jonah Kuhio Kalaniana’ole (who would almost certainly been King if the US hadn’t annexed Hawaii). It features a monument to the Prince, an acknowledgement of the Kauai chapter of the Royal Order of Kamehameha I, and the remains of an ancient heiau.

We crossed the street to look out at the ocean before driving away.

Our next stop was Spouting Horn in Poipu; unlike our other stops today, we’d been there before. It was a lot less crowded on a cloudy Tuesday than it had been when we visited on a sunny Saturday in 2017!

Our driving guide suggested stopping at the Kukuiula Boat Harbor to see a different view of Spouting Horn; it probably wasn’t worth the stop, but I did like looking around at the people using the bay.

We turned for home, but the guide had one more suggestion – a trip to Shipwreck Beach near the Grand Hyatt. When we got there, there was a person atop the cliffs considering jumping in (it’s about a 40-foot jump and it might even be legal).

I watched him for a few minutes, then turned away briefly. I should have waited.

We took a very short walk on the Maha’ulepu Heritage Trail; I wish we’d had more time to see more of it.

It was time to head home. As we neared Lihue, we saw a wonderful rainbow – and a couple of minutes later, we were in a torrential rainstorm!

The storm didn’t last long, and we had mostly dry weather the rest of the way back.

We started the morning with a quick stop at the Opaeka’a Falls overlook, arriving just in time to catch a quick glimpse of a rainbow over the falls.

We crossed the road to see the view of the Wailua River.

Our next stop was a short visit to Kauai’s Hindu Monastery, which was founded in 1970 by Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami (Gurudeva).

Lord Ganesha, the Remover of Obstacles and God of Beginnings, greets and blesses visitors.

The Meditation Banyan is a short distance from the entry; inside, there were chairs where you could sit and meditate as well as a statue of Lord Shanmuga, the god of Yoga. His six faces are arranged in a circle.

We left the banyan and walked toward the Kadavul Temple; a worship service was taking place, so we couldn’t go in.

We next encountered Sadāsiva, the Ever-Auspicious One, another aspect of the deity.

The monastery has been constructing a larger temple, the Iraivan Temple, since 1975 and hope to finish it in the next couple of years. The blocks of granite are carved in India and put together in Kauai; it is intended as a destination for pilgrims.

I would have liked to have spent more time at the Monastery, but we were on a schedule – we had to leave for a chocolate tasting and tour at Lydgate Farms, about 15 minutes away.

Our guide, Mel, gave us a brief introduction to the farm and to chocolate (with a little tasting, of course) before taking us on a walk through the farm itself. They grow many crops there, including vanilla, but the main attraction is chocolate.

Mel opened a pod and gave us each some of the fruit to taste. It didn’t taste much like chocolate!

We got to sample honey, rambutan, longan, and chocolate at various stages of processing.

We finished with a ten-chocolate tasting; besides the Lydgate Farms chocolates (wonderful!), they gave us three chocolates from Valrhona, one from Taza, and even a Hershey Dark Special! The idea was to help us taste (and smell, feel, and see) the differences between chocolates.

It was a very good tour – the only problem was the timing. We started at 11am and finished around 2pm, which crowded out lunch. So we did the obvious thing and drove 25 minutes to Kōloa Rum for a tasting there!

We got to make a mini-MaiTai and taste six of their rums…for free!

Dinner seemed like a good idea after the tasting, so we drove to Kilauea for blackened ahi and normal-sized MaiTais at The Bistro before coming back to the resort for the evening.