Kauai Day 3: Wimea Canyon

It was raining again on the north shore so we went to Wimea Canyon on the west side today. Wow. We stopped for lunch, then had a shave ice at Jo Jo's, which is supposedly the best shave ice on the island. It was yum.

Then went to the Canyon and stopped at several lookouts before going on the Canyon Hike. It was a 3 mile round trip.

Not too long, but it was basically 1.5 miles going down and 1.5 miles going up (yep-it felt like descending stairs for 1.5 miles going in, then climbing them coming out). Let's just say my my quads felt the burn. Literally, there were stairs:
We saw a small waterfall first:
The highlight though was Waipoo Falls, an 800 foot waterfall. Here's a pic of the waterfall from a lookout--notice the red cliff shelf to the left of the waterfall in the right hand corner.
That's where we hiked! Here's a pic of us standing on the shelf:

Then of Jonathan sitting on the edge of the waterfall (heights freak me out so I didn't join him):

After we hiked out, we went to the farthest 2 lookouts in the Canyon and saw our first views of the Napali Coast:
Gorgeous. We hope to hike there later this week, however, it is supposed to rain all week on the north shore, and the trail is closed when it's slippery (since you're literally walking along the edge of the ridge) so we'll see how it works out.

We drove to the farthest west point you could drive on the west side and sat along the beach to watch the sunset over Ni'ihau, a private island.
We topped off the night with pizza at Brick Oven, "the best pizza on the island". It was. (Hmmm...who spends too much time in her guide book??)

Great day. G-R-E-A-T day.