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Published: April 12th 2023
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Another generous concession with a slightly relaxing start to the day…in that I yelled and made everyone get up but at least the sun well and truly beat us. Retraced our steps from yesterday before heading distinctly upwards towards Waimea Canyon, said to be the ‘Grand Canyon of Hawaii’. Spoiler alert: we liked it better.
Up up up and some more up, and it wasn’t too long before we were enjoying glimpses of the red dirt and green trimmings out the car window. First stop was an attempt to park at the Cliff walk, failed, so we headed to the Pu’u Hinahina lookout. Eloise got the closest she was going to get to the side of the cliff and the rest of us enjoyed the spectacular changes of shade and colour.
Our stalking paid off at the parking area and we headed into the valley to join the cliff trail. I’d promised the girls it was an easy “20 minutes” spur trail, but I’d failed to realise that we had to walk to the trail head, which took 30+ minutes. Oh well, it was a nice view in the end, so says three of us.
Back to the
car and our apartment before another snorkel and a quick turtle snorkel encounter. Enjoyed some drinks, snacks and shave ice at the beach park before taking the massive trek back to ‘our’ grass for some drinks, turtle watching and a spectacular sunset.
Not feeling as generous this morning, we were up with the sun and headed to the Wailua River, along with half the island who seemed to be up before dawn as well. Met our guide Cole, donned our life jackets and headed out on the river.
All those months of rowing training did not prove beneficial as she was clearly used to someone else providing the steering while she provided the (considerable) power. I think we covered twice as much distance as everyone else as we ‘meandered’ in a zig zag fashion along the river. Beached our kayaks (this time intentionally) before heading along a muddy jungle trail towards the secret falls.
Did I say muddy?! The way in provided the opportunity to be a little more careful with our footing and precious with our interactions with the clayey slippery puddles we encountered. A couple of stream crossings and a trek alongside the river before
we reached the Secret Falls. We were luckily one of the first groups to arrive so enjoyed a splash in the pool underneath before attempting to climb behind the waterfall and getting pounded in the process.
A couple of downpours while we were swimming together with an influx of people set up the return journey for a slippery slidey adventure.
And that it was! We were thankful for our walking sticks but had long ago given up the pretence of the ‘high road’ to avoid the puddles, instead relishing the brown-red socks we all now sported and taking bets on who would be the first to have matching pants.
Despite some gallant attempts, no one managed the matching set and we were thankful for Hawaii’s lack of leeches! Back to the kayaks, little improvement on the distance paddled:distance travelled ratio before we made it back to the harbour.
A quick lunch stop before heading back to the apartment for a bit of downtime. The obligatory afternoon snorkel and I was pleased to keep my Turtle Whisperer record in tact with the largest and most chilled snorkelling companion to date.
A last Kauai night special dinner
at the restaurant next door, another beautiful sunset and the joy of packing up six nights of domestic sprawl to look forward to tomorrow!
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