We set out this morning for Waimea Canyon and Koke’e State Parks, most of the way around the island from our timeshare. If we’d gone directly there, it would have taken two hours each way.

We’ve been listening to the Kauai Revealed Drive Tour as we drive; it provides interesting insights, stories, and lots of suggestions for detours for beaches, hikes, and other diversions. We accepted its suggestion of detouring to Wailua Falls, about 15 minutes off the highway.

It’s Kauai, so there were lots of chickens strutting around (apparently tourists feed them; we didn’t!).

Chickens don’t read signs.

We drove back to the highway and resumed our journey. We’d eaten at Japanese Grandmother’s Cafe in Hanapepe on our first trip to Kauai and really liked it, so we went there for lunch. It’s a much bigger operation now than it was in 2017, but the food was just OK this time; I don’t think we’ll return, though I wouldn’t mind seeing a Friday Art Night in Hanapepe.

From Hanapepe, we continued to Waimea and the road leading to the canyon. The drive guide suggested a stop at an “informal” lookout for a good view of the canyon and waterfall – it was right.

We proceeded up the road to the Pu’u Ka Pele lookout for a slightly different view (and better parking).

We also visited the Pu’u Hinahina Lookout and walked a short part of the Canyon Trail there, but I didn’t get any good photos. From there, we continued to the Koke’e Museum and walked the Nature Trail there; again, no photos.

We turned back after the museum and drove to the Waimea Canyon Lookout, which had terrific views of the canyon and waterfall.

There’s a sightseeing helicopter in the last photo – can you find it?

We left the lookout and drove back to the resort, stopping in Kapa’a for falafel at Shakalafel.

The whole trip took about 9 hours; I’m exhausted!

I went out on our balcony this morning before breakfast and was greeted by evidence that we were truly on Kauai – a chicken walking by the building.

We started our day with massages here at the resort, followed by a visit to the Princeville Farmers and Arts Market. Most of the vendors were artisans, but there were a few farmers, so we picked up some local citrus and rambutans.

We drove to Kilauea for lunch at Kilauea Fish Market (ahi wraps, yum!) and continued onward to the Kilauea Lighthouse to see what we could see.

The lighthouse is part of the Kilauea Point National Wildlife Refuge, and there was a lot of wildlife to enjoy seeing. Butterflies, for example.

And lots of nene (Hawaiian Geese).

And Laysan Albatross.

We even saw a whale! Here’s the best photo I got – the fluke is clearly visible.

I will spare you the twenty or so photos I took which only show the whale’s spout, and the forty which only showed empty ocean.

We stopped at Kong Lung Market Center and wandered around for a while. Unfortunately, the shave ice store there had already closed for the day, so we had to go to the Ching Young Village in Hanalei to get shave ice at JoJo’s.

We looked at a few of the shops in the center before going back to the resort for a quiet evening.