Kauai- Day Six, Grand Canyon of Kauai

Aloha!
       Today we finally made it up to Waimea Canyon! The canyon is a spectacular place to take photos of the Hawaiian landscape in all its infamous glory! However, due to surfing my little heart out yesterday, I was plenty sore and tired when I woke up this morning. Even after having some delicious Ahi Poke with tomatoes and scrambled eggs, plus two cups of coffee I was really sluggish. So I decided that the best plan of action was to chill by the pool for a while and let the sun do some damage control on my poor, lazy muscles. We left around noon. The town of Waimea is about an hour and a

Yeah! That's what I'm talkin' about!

Ok, all sunned up an' ready to go!

half drive from our hotel, so we arrived around 1:30 or so. We decided to have a picnic lunch by the beach. I recommend buying a little cheapo ice chest from the grocery store while you stay in Kauai, because food is often expensive, and you can use it to pack sandwiches around whenever you feel so inclined.
       If you have been reading Happy Journeys  consistently, you'll remember some photos I took of skim borders and surfers in "Kauai- Day Two"- well we had lunch on the very same beach that I took those photos on. The beach is called Kekaha Beach, and it consists of several thousand feet of beautiful sandy beach, bordered by grassy park land equipped with some seating and spigots to rinse salt water from your bod. It seems to be a favorite beach for the local surfers, but when we asked the lifeguard about it, he told us that it was best for intermediate to advanced surfers due to a coral reef that stretches between the break and the beach. Anyway, its one of my favorite places on the island to take surfing photos so far, so I thought I would share some with you folks!

Believe it or not, he made it to shore

guy heading out

female surfer

        I've come to find during my stay in Hawaii, that I really enjoy watching people surf. Especially now that I kind of know what I'm talking about (thanks Tanner). However, all good things must come to an end- in order to make way for more good things. After stopping for lunch, we missed our exit to the canyon (its at the junction for highway 550, by the way) and ended up driving for another 30 minutes through some beautiful countryside that led us to a dirt road with "4 wheel drive required" signs posted around it. Needless to say, our rental car lacked the aforementioned 4 wheel drive, so we turned around. I got some great shots of the area though!

Farmland

Ocean views

                  
       Finally, we made it to our exit and began our accent up the windy mountain road to Waimea Canyon. If you ever find yourself in this neck of the woods and decide to check out the canyon, I recommend that you bring a sweater or light jacket- no matter how warm you think it will be. The higher you get, the chillier it is- all the way up to about 4,500 feet. It was about a ten minute uphill drive before we reached our turnoff to the viewpoint. Once we arrived, we hiked up a brief flight of stairs and a paved ramp (yes, Waimea is wheelchair accessible) to check out the vast depth of this tropical crevasse! Let me just say- it was stunning! Looking over the canyon gave me a good idea of how the island of Kauai was formed, as it was one of the giant gashes left in the earth from volcanic activity and erosion. The photos I show here do not do it justice- you need to see it for yourself!

The two nice people paying for this adventure!

       As you can see, it was worth the drive! I would NOT want to fall down there, that's for sure. Anyway, after we had had our fill of the canyon, we headed back down to the little town of Waimea to seek out a shrimp shack that my parents had visited on a previous trip to the island. We found it on the main drag through town. It's called "The Shrimp Station" and its a tiny little yellow building with outdoor seating. The had some of the best coconut shrimp I've ever had, and the shrimp tacos were also very delicious. My dad had the beer battered shrimp with fries and they were tasty too- though I'm a die hard coconut shrimp fan myself.

Some guy named Alan took this picture

photo credit to Gerry Bauer (urbanspoon)

After stuffing ourselves with shrimp, we headed off to Poipu Beach again. My dad lost his glasses the first time we visited, and he wanted to go a-searching for them. Who am I to complain? Its a tropical beach! We were surprised to find a group of amateur ukulele players putting on an informal concert. They were actually very good and we had a fun time watching them preform traditional Hawaiian songs. Apparently the group meets every other Sunday to play ukulele together, just for the fun of it. It was a pretty good day.

Everybody now! A-one, two, three, four!

He seemed to be the head haunch-o of the group

Mahalo for reading!