Thursday 11/15
I swear, these are the last sunrise pictures of the trip. After this it’s all sunsets. : )
Thursday was the day to re-visit the Waimea Canyon. We had gone on our last trip to Kauai, but there are so many great hikes, we had to go again. Last time we did the Canyon Trail to the Waipo’o Falls. This time, I really wanted to do the 2-mile Alakai Swamp hike. The hike through the swamp is on a boardwalk, so I figured it wouldn’t be too tough, but to get there, we had to first hike the 2-mile Pihea Trail. (That would be 8 miles round trip.) We got some great views of the Kalalau Valley as we hiked across the ridgeline.
The trail was pretty tough with lots of boulders and rugged terrain. It became clear pretty quickly that we weren’t going to make it to the swamp portion of the hike, so we opted to clamor our way up to the Pihea Overlook, instead.
Another couple we met as we were starting our return journey had made it through the swamp hike and, as I suspected, said the boardwalk was easy and the view at the end was magnificent. But the sun was getting low in the sky and we still had the 2-mile return trek ahead of us. I guess we’ll just have to get up earlier and try the swamp hike next time.
Back at the car, we made stops at the Pu’u Hinahina and Waimea Canyon Lookouts on our way back down to the ocean.
As we were driving along the south side of the island back to our condo in Kapa’a, we saw a beautiful rainbow to the north. We were planning on stopping at the Hanapepe Valley Lookout anyway and that was about 1 minute further down the road. We came to a screeching halt at the lookout and just barely managed to capture the lingering remains of the rainbow over the valley before it disappeared.
What gorgeous pictures! and the scenery is nice too;-)