Our New Year's Eve celebration was quite subdued, but we made up for it today - we hiked into the Waimea canyon.

Last night, after the kayak trip, Jenny felt a little sick and we hadn't made any reservations for dinner. Since it was New Year's Eve, we didn't hold out much hope that we'd be able to find any place that wasn't full and was also offering a vegetarian entree, so we decided to make the pasta that we'd bought when we went grocery shopping.

Afterwards, we went down to the beach to view the festivities. We knew that there was supposed to be a firework show at our beach at 10:00, we headed down a little after nine to witness some of the amateur shows that were going along on the beach.

Fireworks are legal in Hawaii, so there were, in fact, a lot of people shooting them off. The curve of the beach was dotted with fountains - little standing barrels that shoot a fountain of colored sparks for a minute or two. We basically just had to go out and stand in front of the hotel to get a front seat view of two very nice amateur firework shows. The bad news was that it was raining slightly. We really weren't into standing around in the rain, so shortly before ten we decided to go back to our condo and watch the pro fireworks from the lanai (porch).

They put on quite a show, although it only lasted about 15 minutes. I sat outside and smoked my cigar and watched. I stayed out for a while after that (the cigar lasted a lot longer than the firework show) but then came in and we went to bed at around eleven. We were both tired and didn't feel very strongly about having to stay up to greet the new year. Besides, it was already 2006 back where we come from.

This morning I was looking forward to finally doing some hiking - it would have been obscene to come to this island and not hike on it. We had given some thought to where we wanted to go, our main criteria were:

• about a 4 hour hike

• goes through rainforests

• has some nice views

• waterfalls were a big plus

After some consideration, we decided to do one of the hikes in Waimea Canyon. We had been through the canyon on our helicopter ride, and it looked like something I would have liked to get into. So we decided to go for it. Jenny looked through her magical guidebook and found us a hike that seemed to fit the bill - 2-3 hours, canyon views, and two waterfalls!

The weather wasn't looking too good when we left, not that we could complain. Throughout our stay we'd had beautiful weather. But it was actually raining lightly when we left the condo. I personally would have hiked the canyon in the rain, but Jenny wasn't wild about the idea. We set out anyway, knowing that the weather on an island can change in an hour or across the street.

At first we stopped at the observation sights along the canyon. Things were looking pretty grim - dark clouds across the canyon. But it wasn't raining at that time, and we'd had quite a bit of sunshine on the way up, so we took some pictures and headed for the trailhead.

The trail started out as a dirt road - accessible by 4-wheel drive vehicles but not by ours. It went downhill for maybe a mile before we saw the signs for the "Cliff Trail" and "Canyon Trail" pointing down another dirt road to our right. It was still pretty cloudy out at that time, but no rain, and there were patches of blue sky becoming visible.

At the end of the second dirt road, we came upon a small parking area where a number of SUVs were parked. This was the beginning of the footpaths. We made a quick detour to an overlook and there before us was the canyon. It was overwhelming from this vantage point. We could see what looked like a wide dirt road running the length of a ridge to our left, I wondered if this was the trail that we were taking.

As it turned out, it was, but we wouldn't be reaching it for quite some time. We did some uphill/downhill action for a while and came to an intersection of sorts with a signpost. The trails that we explored were unmarked - no blazes, no cairns. This is usually not a big deal in Hawaii because the trail is not mistakable for non-trail. It can become an issue when you're at an intersection trying to figure out where you are.

But the signpost was welcome, our options were the canyon trail and the black pipe trail. We wanted the canyon trail. We followed it down a gulch, mostly red sand with a few sizable smooth looking boulders along the way. It was then that we arrived at the ridge trail that we had seen from the overlook.

The ridge trail was as impressive as I had anticipated. It is a wide (15 feet, at points) stretch of red sand with local fauna on one side and a sharp drop on the other, providing a fantastic view of the canyon. We followed the trail till it started sloping down a set of steps, and then back down into the woods. After a short jaunt downhill we came to the waterfall trail.

The waterfall trail runs perpendicular to the canyon trail and parallel to a small stream. It terminates at two waterfalls - to the left is the bottom of the first waterfall, to the right is the top of the second. The first is about 15 feet high, terminating in a small pool that you can swim in (although we didn't bring swimsuits). The second looks like it's about 100 feet high. In the distance below, it looks like it turns into a third waterfall, but this one is inaccessible.

On the way back, we turned onto the black pipe trail for some variety. It looked like this trail would loop us back to where we came from. This turned out to be a very narrow trail that ran along the side of a steep slope. Jenny wanted us to turn back, but I pointed out that it would probably be easier for us to go ahead than to turn back so we pressed on. The trail forked, and we couldn't figure out where we were on the map, so we took the left fork, figuring that it would either have to terminate or loop with one of the trails we had been on.

The path wound us up a peak before widening and joining with a road. Now we had to figure out which way to go on the road. We consulted the map, but this proved to be ambiguous, so we headed off to the right - which looked like the right thing to do based on my opinion of where we were. The road started to go downhill, and I got a bad feeling. This didn't look right, and I started to feel the edge of panic. I knew in the worst case I could get us back, but it was after four and sundown was coming at six. For us to be here after darkness would be bad. Then the road dead-ended - a foot trail continued on down the hill. My heart sank, because I knew then we'd gone the wrong way. We checked the map again, then suddenly I knew exactly where we were. It turned out we should have taken a left onto the road. That detour cost us about half an hour, but we made it back with plenty of time to spare before sundown.

We had a big dinner that night in one of the nearby hotel restaurants. This would be our last night on Kaua'i.