Kapa'a

Sunday was our post hike day to do some of the less demanding activities on Kaua'i. We got up at 6:00 as we are now on the east shore and went to the beach to see the sunrise.

After the sunrise, we walked to the grocery store nearby to pick up some fresh fruit for breakfast. The pineapple was amazing.

We got ready and headed back down to Poipu to pick up our bags from the Skinners, but had the wrong code so ended up going for lunch instead. We tried our first poké tuna bowl, which was delicious, and had a refreshing fruit salsa.

Since we were on the south shore, we headed up to Waimea Canyon which had great views and was something so different to what we had seen.

Sometimes called the Grand Canyon of the Pacific it is about 10 miles long and up to 3,000 feet deep.

As we got further up towards the top of the island, I was expecting to see further mountains. It was striking to find that the top of the island is essentially flat.

At the end of the road was the Pu'u O Lila Lookout up at 4,137 feet where we were able to look down on the Kalalau Valley below. We could even see the Red Hill right down by the ocean.

We had gone as far as you can drive on the northwest to Ke'e Beach and hiked in to Kalalau, then driven as far as you can along the southwest and essentially circled the island.

We came back down the sea level and worked our way our to the west tip of the island. We wanted to go swimming at Queen's Pond which is a beach, but there's an unmaintained road we had to get across first (this is the end of the road and the best part of it; the picture doesn't do it justice).

It was a great little spot where sand dunes come down to the ocean, and there is a reef creating a "pond" where the water was smooth.

We didn't have much time to stay in the water as I wanted to get back across the unmaintained road with as much light as possible. We worked our way back across the southern short and took a quick stop for the sunset.

We got back to the Skinners' when they were home, picked up our bags and shared stories of the hike with them, then headed home to bed.