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Oh what a glorious day, to be able to sleep until almost 8 AM.
Today's plan was to see The West, from the top and from the water. Meaning, drive up to the top of the Waimea Canyon ridge road, and then take a boat tour up the coast in the afternoon.
We set forth prior to 9 AM, and drove west towards Waimea. It was about 45 minutes from Wailua Bay View.
We stopped for breakfast along the way, at some hippie cafe outside of Hanapepe (possibly in Eleele, which is so unremarkable I'm not even linking to its Wikipedia page).
Lacking a compelling reason to actually stop in Waimea, we cruised on through and began the climb up Rt 550, AKA Waimea Canyon Drive, stopping at the first few... let's call them "pull-over spots"... for some initial impressions.
At some point, we encountered a scene on the side of the road that seemed more appropriate for the surface of Mars than a tropical island. It's helpful to keep in mind that the highest-elevation swamp in the world is here, or so one of the signs claimed.
The canyon rim road got quite sporty in a few locations, much to the delight of my passenger (sarcasm).
I'm not sure which she preferred less, the way up or the way down. But I'm getting ahead of myself, so to speak...
Anyway, we stopped at all of the official lookout points, and took in some truly breathtaking views of the canyon. There were helicopter tours, barely discernible in the distance, flying through the canyon.
After the last canyon lookout, we continued up the ever-narrowing rim road to the lookouts that face the other direction, overlooking the Na Pali Coast. You might recognize it from scene approaching the island in Jurassic Park, if you can visualize a movie from 20 years ago.
The highest of the lookouts was almost exactly a mile above sea level. It was actually quite cool, weather-wise, aside from the searing heat of the sun. The peak in the middle of the park (Waiʻaleʻale) is allegedly one of the wettest places on earth, ranked by average annual rainfall amount.
On the drive back down, we took the other route (Kokee Rd?), which afforded some slightly different views, including a slightly hazy look at the island of Niihau, just off the coast of Kauai.
Upon returning to Waimea, and again finding no good reason to linger, we decided (mostly at my insistence) to finish the drive to the western end of the road. It seemed like a good symmetry to the drive out to Kee Beach a few days ago. At the end of the "official" road, we were dissuaded from reaching the real end of the road by an ominous sign and a vague memory of the intersection of "dirt road" and "violate rental agreement".
As it was not about 1:15, and we had a 3 PM appointment in Port Allen, we turned around and started the trip back towards Hanapepe. Having not really eaten lunch, we stopped for ice cream and tacos. In that order. They happened to be adjacent, which was super-convenient.
After sating our appetites, we had just enough time to return to Eleele/Hanapepe, literally across the street from where we had breakfast, and enjoy a quick jaunt across the Swinging Bridge, which is almost a bridge to nowhere. Or perhaps just a bridge to the levee on the other side of the river, AKA some peoples' backyards.
By now, it was almost 2:30, so we headed down to Port Allen to check in with our boat tour situation. The sunset/dinner Na Pali coast tour left around 3:30, on a 65' dual-engine catamaran. With a bar. Sabrina picked it, I swear.
The ride out to the Na Pali coast was quite rough, and many of us got quite wet. We spent the rest of the afternoon and evening admiring the same landscapes that we had seen from above, earlier in the day. (I took the time to rotate/level most of these photos, but then managed to export/upload the originals anyway. If you want a version of any of these where the horizon is level, let me know and I'll send it your way.)
The excellent captain even managed to nudge the boat partially into some of the larger sea caves. Also there were giant fish, some dolphins, a few wild goats, and an unconfirmed sighting of a manta ray. Getting a picture of a dolphin jumping out of the water turns out to be quite difficult, but if you zoom in and look on the right side of this last one, it's there.
Eventually, we had to head back to port. But we got dinner on the way back, and it was a much smoother ride as it was now with the current/waves/wind.
As the sun slowly set, we returned to port, disembarked, and returned to the condo. Tomorrow is a bit of a wildcard, and then we fly back to Oahu tomorrow night.
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