Day 78: Kaua'i - Waimea Canyon

Waimea Canyon

Today was getting up early (6:00 sharp) to be early at the Waimea Canyon. As it was nearly a 1:30h drive from our stay, this helped to beat the crowds a bit.

Our first stop was the Waimea Canyon Lookout, from where we had an impressive view over the canyon.

Next stop was then Niihau Lookout, from where we decided to do a hike. Inspired by Alltrails we planned to stitched multiple trails together to form one larger loop. First we went down, roughly a 100 meters to reach the Canyon Trail. This led to a first Waterfall, which was the turn around point for most of the people that were hiking here.

But for us the real fun just started here, the trail became more narrow and more remote. We didn’t saw a single person for the next ~2 hours.

Most of the trail was in the forest or away from the cliff, but sometimes the view opened up and we could get another glimpse of the canyon.

Then as we reached the next trail, we had a really really overgrown section.

But we made it through that as well and found a bit later a nice spot for our lunch break. We hadn’t packed more than some bars, but they did the job and reduced our hunger.

Then we hiked the last part of the loop, before we had to hike back up the way we came down in the beginning (around ~2km).

After we finished hiking, we checked out the other Lookouts by car and got a nice view of the Napali coast.

And then

On the way back we did a short stop at the Red Dirt Waterfall, which had a really fascinating color.

Even though we got up early, it was after 16:00 when we were back at our place. For Dinner we went to Lava Lava, together with John and Heather which were the Hosts of the Guesthouse when we were there. Was a really cool get together and fun to see them again.

Pictures

Activities

Hike: Pu’u Hinahina Trail, Canyon Trail and Waininiua Trail