Wolf and Jan Travels: WAIMEA CANYON NOV 24 2011

Today was a perfect day to dive the 36 mile round trip up the Waimea Canyon Road. Our first stop was a viewpoint overlooking the town of Waimea and the Waimea River

From here it was a climb of over 3,100 feet and stopping along the way at some fantastic viewpoints.

This is a view over to the island of Ni'ihau which is privately owned and you are not welcome to come ashore. The Robinson family have owned the island for years and is relatively all Hawai'ian including speaking Hawai'ian. The island is 17 miles from Kaua'i. There are about 200 people, no telephones, no cable TV and one unpaved road halfway around the island. Power is supplied by solar and generator. They live in one village called Pu'uwi located in the only part of the island where you cannot see over to Kaua'i. It is a 3 hour rough boat ride to get from Ni'ihau to Kaua'i.

Below are some photos of the canyon which is 10 miles long, 1 mile wide and 3600 feet deep. There is about a 4000 foot elevation rise as you drive and the temperature is 10-15 F cooler than at sealevel.
The best hiking trails are in this area, and the vista surpasses the Grand Canyon in Arizona.

We were treated to a great vista and some goats who were on a rocky out cropping, they may look close but I was using my 10x zoom to bring them in. At one point a helicopter flew through the canyon and he was just a speck.

We finally got to the top of the canyon and were presented with the most beautiful view of all, the Kalalau Valley, 4178 feet above sealevel, looking down was amazing, the vast ocean, the beautiful rocks the lush valley.

This valley is the largest valley on the Na Pali coast line, which is the north west side of Kaua'i. To get down to the ocean etc you can only get there by hiking 11 miles in from the north end.

This is the red rock trail to the viewing area, the soil here is very very red, I forgot to photograph it. OOPS

And of course cannot forget the rooster photo, this guy was at our lunch spot and his colors were so different from the darker roosters. They sure do know how to beg. We did not see any Nene's which are decendents of the Canada Goose (they got lost) over the years they have lost their web feet and live up in the canyon area.

That was a great day, almost forgot about our Farmer's Market find, below our day at the market produced lots of fresh fruit and veggies. Papaya,kale, passionfruit, okra, eggplant,oranges, grapefruit, avocado, lemons, pineapple, ohhhhhh so wonderful.