Category: Hawaii Travel

HERE ON THE BIG ISLAND
By Kelly Moran

Southbound
[Part 2 of 2 – Click here for Part 1]

DAY 2

No place in Ka’u is more compelling than Ka Lae: literally “the point,” but popularly (and on road signs) called South Point.  This is probably where the first voyaging Polynesians made landfall in the Hawaiian Islands.  You might not think its barren lava, rocky bays, wind-blown sand dunes and incessant currents would make for an inviting anchorage, but after months at sea in a double-hulled canoe, it must have seemed sheltering indeed.

[Graffiti artists made this “signboard” at Ka Lae.]

Those famously brisk winds are why two wind-turbine “farms” have been built along the road to South Point.  The first, erected in the 1970s, was later dismantled – you’ll see the segments of its towers piled up like giant abstract  sculptures.  The newest wind turbines, though, are fully up and twirling, and contributing their share to the island’s electrical grid.

[Cliff-jumpers and lookers-on gather at Ka Lae.  Wind turbines in the distance contribute to the Big Island’s electricity grid.]

At the end of the road, you’ll want to see two sights: Ka Lae itself, the southernmost point in Hawaii, and the bizarre “green sand” beach.

[At the end of the trail , the first glimpse of the green sand beach in Ka’u, with its eroded cliff of layered lava and sand.]

[Looking down on the green sand beach from the clifftop above it.]

A panorama, seen from the green sand beach: its rocky shoreline and the beach itself ….

A panorama, seen from *above* the green sand beach ….

At Ka Lae, and especially on weekends, a few vendors will be opening fresh coconuts for drinking, or selling other snacks; and there’ll be a pair of porta-potties as well.  But what you’ll remember best is the sight of youngsters jumping off the high cliffs into the sea, and climbing back up ladders and ropes so they can plunge in again and again.  The guidebooks are right: don’t try this if nobody else is doing it, and even then, be very careful.

[A video of how it’s done at Ka Lae: you stand on the wooden platform on the cliff top, then step off … ]

[Young women jump off the cliff at Ka Lae …]

Four miles away, however, is Hawaii’s most unusual beach.  To get there, drive one mile east from Ka Lae, park where other cars are parked (lock yours, too), and be prepared to hike three miles over lava and sand.  Lather on the sunblock; there are no trees and no shade.  Wear sturdy shoes or hiking boots; there isn’t much groundcover vegetation to cushion your feet.  And pack in whatever you’ll want to eat and drink – there are no vendors, no services, no water and no toilets.

Don’t try to drive the trail yourself, even if you have a four-wheel-drive vehicle.  The dunes have been deeply rutted, over the years, by off-road vehicles and motorcycles.  So only folks who live nearby are likely to be experienced enough to know which tracks can be followed without getting stuck in sand or hung up on rocks.  (Some local guys do offer rides, which you may well want to accept, one way or both; but tip the driver if you take him up on it.) 

Why put yourself through the heat and exertion of trekking along this windiest, dustiest edge of the Ka’u coastline?  Because at the end of the trail is a small bay whose steep beach is like no other.  The “sand” there is mostly bits of olivine – a green, glassy mineral that exploded into billions of tiny fragments when the molten lava that carried it reached the cold sea.  Mixed with black sand, which formed from regular lava in the same way and at the same time, olivine crystals give the beach a greenish tint that’s easy to see, but the color is surprisingly hard to capture accurately in a photograph.

Don’t even think about keeping a handful of olivine; taking any amount is against the law, and you could be fined much more than the price of a legal sample that you can buy in many souvenir shops.  This isn’t a beach for sunbathing or even swimming: even more than on other Ka’u beaches, you should be cautious about going in the water if the weather is anything but pleasant, if the winds are more than slightly brisk, and especially if no one else is swimming.

Stand on the cliff top and look out beyond the beach to the sea: there’s nothing but ocean all the way to Tahiti.  Turn around, and look up at Mauna Loa, and imagine how such a huge mountain must have looked to the first voyagers, and how far from anything familiar they must have felt.  In Ka’u, you are more-or-less equidistant from urban Hilo and suburban Kailua-Kona – not only in distance but in feeling.

HERE ON THE BIG ISLAND

By Kelly Moran

Kohala For a Day
 

An old song says: “It’s the far northland that’s a-calling me away . . . .“  And you might hear the call too, if you visit Kohala, the northernmost part of the Big Island.  There’s a South Kohala disctrict, famous for beaches and resorts, but say simply “Kohala” to local folks, and you’ll be understood to mean North Kohala.

Getting there is twenty-mile drive from upscale Waimea, yet in some ways, Kohala is an island unto itself.  The Kohala “mountains” are green, verdant cinder cones – all that’s left of the geologically oldest of this island’s volcanoes.  At their feet, the landscape is reminiscent of Maui’s oldest (Hana) district, with deeper, more fertile soils and thicker vegetation than anywhere else on the Big Island.

Kohala is also a cape.  Small-craft warnings are regularly posted for the Alenuihaha Channel that separates Hawaii from Maui.  The seas are always rough, with only one place to safely swim: the lovely little Keokea Beach (County) Park, which has a man-made breakwater to create a sheltered swimmable  bay. 

 

 

And there’s always a breeze: our electric utility (HELCO) purchases extra power from a “farm” of turbines that whirl in the near-continuous winds.

People have lived in Kohala since the very first voyagers came here from Samoa in the 800’s and 900’s AD.  Their heiau still stands near Upolu Point, though it was later expanded by the people we think of today as “Hawaiians” – the descendents of those who emigrated from Tahiti.  It was at that heiau, too, that the birth of Kamehameha the Great was celebrated.  By the twentieth century, agricultural workers from Japan, the Philippines and the Azores (Portugal), came here to work in the sugar fields and mills.  At the foot of Old Coast Guard Road, there’s a monument to Puerto Rican immigrants from 1901.

Kohala’s towns, Hawi and Kapa’au, developed and grew in the sugar plantation era.  Today, Kapa’au remains the governmental center of the district, and retains most of its day-to-day businesses, like hardware and grocery stores, along with some innovative galleries and restaurants.  Kenji’s House, for example, is the former home of a local beachcomber/diver whose seashell-and-stone sculptures are “folk art” at its unpretentious best.  Just below it stands Pico’s Bistro, offering gourmet and vegetarian pizzas and salads.

Hawi is more self-consciously a visitor destination, featuring a wider variety of artistic offerings and eateries.  Especially intriguing, on my latest visit, were the ukuleles and guitars, both old and new, at Hawi Gallery Art & Ukuleles; and the vintage and collectible clothes next door at Chi Chi La Fong.  There’s an amazing choice of sushi, both traditional and modern, across the street at Sushi Rock, where they give a Kama’aina discount at lunch and for the first hour at dinnertime.

Even if living full time in the “far northland” isn’t on your bucket-list, spend a day or two in Kohala, and enjoy both the natural and artistic offerings, and the echoes of a quiet and rural lifestyle that once characterized the entire island.