Waimea Canyon

Up early for a fresh morning walk that took us again past the Hyatt and to a rocky look off at Shipwreck Beach.  It is said that Harrison Ford jumped (his stunt man) from this spot in one of his movies. Not something any of us wanted to do.

After our breakfast of fresh papaya, pineapple and granola Norm and I headed west this time to see the Waimea Canyon. It really is quite spectacular. First stop on the way was to say hello to yet another rooster. They are everywhere! 

The winding road up to the canyon has many places to stop along the way. We hiked about a half mile down before deciding that we really didn't have time to do the full 2 1/2 miles to the river below and then climb back up. But the views along the way were great.

Here is the beginning.

And the colours were amazing especially the red earth.

Looking the other way.

Here is a lookout where you can see the waterfall in the distance. 

And here is a closer look. Some day, more time," we'll hike down. We were actually a long way up, at an elevation of about 3,500 feet before we turned around. The temperature is a fair bit lower up there, in the low60s F. compared to the coast at some 20 degrees warmer 15 miles away down the winding ridge top road. It's amazing terrain, as the photos show -- in some places the ground resembles brown cookie crumbs, others slippery clay. It's all eroding practically as we watch. Just imagine what a rainstorm dropping several inches in a few hours can do.

".

Yellow Bunny was able to handle the heights too. 

On our way back home we had a lunch of papaya seed shrimp tacos and for dessert combinationof  shave ice with pineapple, papaya and passion fruit syrups and a scoop of macadamia nut ice cream. Delicious! 

Next stop the Kauai Coffee Centre. We did a self-guided walkabout. This used to be a sugar plantation until the first coffee trees were planted in the 1980s. Hurricane Iniki in 1992 almost wiped out the new business, but they carried on. Today there are some four million coffee trees of five different arabica varieties. Norm sampled a coffee and checked out the gift store. 

This machine is used to pick the berries off the bushes. The Kauai coffee is OK, but the best Hawaiian coffee apparently is Kona from the big island. 

Once home we had a refreshing swim in the pool here at Poi Pu Crater. Found out about the Sea Hawks Super Bowl win and finished the day off with dinner with friends, Heather Brad, Wanda and Warren. Nice.