I had big plans for our final full day on Kauai. After her queasiness on the boat ride, my wife was not up for a twisty ride through the Waimea Canyon and a hike, so she was quite happy to stake out some seats at the pool and keep shelling on the beach for the morning.  We also sent out our laundry that morning as we had up to $150 credit to use and it would be nice to return home without a suitcase full of dirty clothes.  The prices weren’t bad for hotel laundry.  We only used about $76 of the credit in the end.

I headed out after breakfast in the lounge (yes, 6:30am again) and drove over to Waimea Canyon Drive.  There was a lot of cloud cover on the way up and I wasn’t too hopeful, but when I reached the Pu’u O Kila Lookout at the end of the road, the clouds momentarily cleared enough to get some great pictures down to the ocean where I had been two days before.

Then I headed back down, stopping at the Kalalau Lookout.

I stopped a few more lookouts on the way back down to catch some views of the canyon.

I drove down a bit further and parked at the Waimea Canyon trailhead.  It was raining part of the way, so things got a bit slippery and muddy.  I had brought a pair of old sneakers that I planned to just throw out if they got too muddy.  I was glad that my wife had stayed back as this hike would have been a bit too strenuous for her.  It ended at a bit of a disappointing waterfall but was a fun way to spend a couple of hours.

I headed back down to sea level and stopped in the cute town of Koloa for some poke at Koloa Fish Market.  I highly recommend a stop there for some fresh poke.  They are still only doing takeout, so I brought it back to the Hyatt and ate it by the pool with a cocktail.

I was pretty wiped out so I hung out by the pool and read (and napped) for the rest of the afternoon.  Our laundry was also back in the suite by the time we went to change for dinner.  That evening we drove over to Beach House restaurant and enjoyed a great sunset view dinner with the same Mai-Tai’s from Merriman’s (same owner).

Next up: Our long last day on Kauai