Vacation Rental in Princeville Kauai

and Kauai Travel Guide

©B.Pruitt 2009-2011

Kauai West Side Sights

As the Kaumuali‘i Highway heads west from Kalaheo, the green rolling hills of the countryside give way to flat coastal lowlands.  In the rainshadow of Wai‘ale‘ale, Kauai's west side is arid, sunny and hot—more so than any part of the island.  Sugar cane still grows on the west side thanks to an elaborate irrigation system that collects Wai‘ale‘ale's watershed.

 

When the McBryde Sugar Company shut down its sugar production in the mid-nineties, it switched much of its acreage to coffee.  Now it has 3,400 acres of former sugar land planted with row upon row of coffee trees.  You will drive through the Kauai Coffee Company estate as you follow the highway west from Kalaheo.  The Kauai Coffee Company has built a coffee museum and visitor center (335-0831) near its production facility at the former sugar camp of Numila.  The visitor center is off the Kaumuali‘i Highway on Highway 540.  It may be easier to stop on your way back from the west side.  In that case, turn onto Highway 540 at Ele‘ele.  The visitors center is housed in two renovated plantation workers houses.  One structure houses exhibits about coffee production and a coffee roasting area.  In here are freshly brewed free samples of the dozen or so varieties of coffee they produce.  The coffee company converted the other plantation house into a gift shop where you can buy their coffee, of course, as well as souvenirs related to all things coffee.  A continuous video shows the process by which the coffee is grown and harvested, through its milling and sorting process, and ending with the product being cupped, or taste-tested for quality.  Kauai coffee is 100 percent Hawaiian arabica.  Wholesalers and roasters buy most of the beans with the best beans sold as Kauai Coffee on the specialty market.

 

An overlook of the Hanapepe River Valley at mile marker 14 of Kaumuali‘i Highway offers a choice view of the green river valley trimmed with red cliffs.  Hanapepe Valley marks the eastern limit of the Makaweli Depression where a great wedge of land slumped down from the volcano's caldera.  Lava flowed out of the caldera into the depression to form high walls of Na Pali basalt.  After a long period of erosion, eruptions of Koloa basalt covered the valley.  Hanapepe River has cut this valley repeatedly; first through the collapsed flow of the shield volcano and again in the period of rejuvenated volcanism.  The cycles of lava flows and erosion have exposed layer upon layer of red rock in the valley walls.

Across the highway from the overlook, in fields now planted in coffee, is the scene of the last battle fought on Kauai.  In 1824, George Humehume Kaumuali‘i, son of the last king of Kauai, led an unsuccessful revolt against the Kingdom of Hawaii, ruled by Kamehameha II, son of Kamehameha the Great.  The forces of Kamehameha II destroyed the Kauai army.  For two weeks, before amnesty was declared, the Kauai ali‘i suffered terrible retributions.  

 

Hanapepe

Hanapepe bills itself as "the biggest little town on Kauai" and it might also include "bougainvillea capital of the world" in its boasts.  Cascades of red and purple bougainvillea spill onto the roadside and hang from the bluff overlooking the town.  Hanapepe's historic district looks as if dilapidation battled renewal to a draw.  Hanapepe Road, the town's main street, is lined with refurbished storefronts, art galleries and restaurants painted in tropical pastels.  Interspersed are abandoned, run-down buildings—vestiges of a successful past.

In 1923, a riot between police and striking sugar cane workers took place in Hanapepe.  Six people died in the clash.  Hanapepe was a bustling town during the 1930s and World War II with movie theaters, roller rinks and other businesses flourishing.  As Lihu'e developed and transportation improved, business on the westside fell off.  Many of the old wooden buildings could not withstand the force of Hurricane Iniki in 1992.  Some of their ramshackle remains hang on.

 

Each Friday from 6 to 9 p.m., Hanapepe galleries celebrate Friday Art Night festivities.  Galleries open their doors to the public, inviting folks to browse studios and workshops and meet Kauai artists.  Refreshments and entertainment add to the informal atmosphere.

 

A suspension footbridge, called the Hanapepe Swinging Bridge, crosses the river from the town center.  You can cross the photogenic bridge, which will swing and bounce as you do, and walk along a trail on the river levee.  Residents here on the other side of the river live in small wooden houses and goats live in the yards.  Chickens live wherever they please.  Fruit trees abound and taro is grown in small plots.  The scene harks to bygone days of rural Hawaii.

 

 At the east end of Hanapepe Road, where it turns to the highway, is a staircase with a metal pipe railing leading up the bluff the that stands over town.  A short climb will give you a good view of the bougainvillea growing on the hillside and the river curving around the town as it empties into Hanapepe Bay.

 

Across the highway from Hanapepe is Port Allen where many sightseeing and whale-watching cruises depart.  The four towers near the dock are exhaust stacks for Kauai Electric Company's main generating plant.

 

On the west side of Hanapepe, a sign indicates the Route 543 turnoff to the Port Allen airport and Salt Pond Beach.  The airport is used by one helicopter tour company and by ultralight aircraft enthusiasts.  Between the airport and the Salt Pond Beach Park are the old Salt Ponds.  For centuries, Hawaiians have evaporated sea water for salt to use for seasoning and preserving fish.  Sailors would stop to trade for the valuable commodity.  Here, shallow ponds, sealed with a clay-rich soil, allowed the sun to evaporate sea water into salt crystals.  The soil imparts a red tinge and special flavor to the sea salt.  Salt is no longer produced here commercially but in the spring and summer months locals manufacture salt for their own use.

 

Two miles west of Hanapepe, at mile marker 19, are the old sugar camps of Kaumakani and Olokele.  Here, in a former field office, is the office of the Gay and Robinson Sugar Plantation Tour.  Now the last working plantation on Kauai, Gay and Robinson, runs guided tours to plantation fields and mill factories that have been off-limits to visitors.  The focus of the tour is on the history of the plantation, its operation, sugar processing and astounding irrigation system.  Tours run year-round but during the months of April through October you will see the mill in operation.  During the off-season, the mill is down for repairs.  Participants of the bus and walking tour will come away with an understanding of the industry that has contributed to Hawaii's economy for more that 170 years.  They can also expect to come away with a layer of red dust.  Plan on wearing old or dark clothes as the bus, plantation vehicles and the factory kick up a lot of the westside's famous red dirt.  Closed shoes are necessary for the factory tour; hard hats and safety glasses are provided.  Small children are not encouraged to join in the tour.  The tour office is open 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., five days a week.  Knowledgeable guides lead two-hour tours twice a day.  Reservations are required and can be made by calling 335-2824.

 

Gay and Robinson Co. conducts an Olokele Canyon Tour beginning at their tour office.  Popular with both visitors and residents, the informal tour takes a group of no more than four on a ride in an extended-cab pickup truck.  The three-and-a-half tour follows the old carriage road on Gay and Robinson land.  It begins in slanted sugar fields and moves into the Gay and Robinson Makaweli Ranch, which still raises the Durham Shorthorn breed of cattle that the Sinclair family brought to the island in 1865.  The tour ends at the overlook of the Olokele Canyon and the eastern rim of Waimea Canyon.  A helicopter tour is the only other way to see these sights.  Lunch is provided on the tour, which departs the visitor center at 8:30 a.m.  The tour cost $60 for passengers older than 12 and $45 for children 12 and under.  To make a reservation, call (808) 335-2824.

 

Waimea

Waimea has figured prominently in Kauai's history.  It was an ancient capital and major population center.  Captain James Cook and his crew were the first Westerners to ever set foot on Hawaiian soil when they landed at Waimea on January 19, 1778.  The site of the famous explorer's landing is noted with a simple plaque at Lucy Wright Park, on the west bank of the Waimea River.  A statue of Cook's likeness stands in the town square, next to the highway.  It is a replica of the original statue by Sir John Tweed that stands in Cook's hometown of Whitby, England.  In the 1820s, shortly after an odd episode of Russian intervention, Waimea was the base for missionaries who came to Kauai to spread the word.  In 1850, Waimea became a port of entry for foreign ships.  Japanese, Chinese and Portuguese immigrants landed at Waimea to begin their fulfillment of work contracts with sugar plantations.  And before any of them, the Menehune settled the Waimea area, building heiaus and ditches to convey water.

 

Fort Elizabeth State Park commands a sweeping view of Waimea Bay from a bluff on the east side of the Waimea River.  Named after the Russian czarina, Hawaiian and Aleut laborers began construction of Fort Elizabeth in 1816.  Georg Schäffer, who posed as an emissary of the Russian American Company of Alaska, promised Kauai's King Kaumuali‘i that the czar would assist him in vanquishing Kamehameha and thus return sole rule of Kauai to Kaumuali‘i.  The star-shaped fort, built with 38 cannons trained on the important landing of Waimea Bay, was part of the plan enthusiastically supported by Kaumuali‘i.  Schäffer's demise came when he was exposed as an imposter.  Kaumuali‘i banished Schäffer and ordered the Russian flag removed from the fort just as it was completed in 1817.  The cannons of the fort are long gone and parts of the stone walls have been dismantled.  It takes some imagination now to picture the piled stones overgrown with yellow-flowered ilima as a strategic military outpost.  An interpretive walking trail leads through the remains of the fort.  There are restrooms and a pay phone at the parking lot.

 

About a mile and a quarter along Menehune Road from Waimea, next to a suspension foot bridge, is an archaeological site called the Menehune Ditch.  The earliest settlers of Hawaii are credited with building an aqueduct to carry water several miles from the upper reaches of the Waimea River to taro fields in the lower valley.  In a manner unseen elsewhere in Hawaii, the stones of the Menehune Ditch were cut and dressed to fit together closely and present a smooth, flat surface.  The ditch's walls were estimated to be 24 feet high with a footpath along the top.  Unfortunately, all that remains of the ditch is a section about two feet high and fifty feet long next to the road.  Construction of Menehune Road destroyed parts of the ditch and stones were removed to use in buildings such as the Protestant church in Waimea.

 

The people of Waimea are pushing to revitalize the sleepy town and take economic advantage of the nearly one million people that pass through each year.  A 110-seat brew pub has opened at the Waimea Plantation Cottages.  The historic Waimea theatre, built in 1938 at the height of the Art Deco period has been beautifully restored and is showing movies again after a 30-year hiatus.  It was the first theater on the island to have a marquee with electric lights.  The West Kauai Visitor and Technology Center (338-1332) features interactive displays about Kauai's culture and technological abilities.  It's open seven days a week and is located where Waimea Canyon Drive intersects with the highway.

 

If you plan on driving up to Waimea Canyon, watch for the sign pointing to Highway 550, Waimea Canyon Drive.  A highway sign indicates that Waimea Canyon is straight ahead, but you have two choices.  Another access to the canyon begins at Kekaha, on Koke‘e Road.  You could drive up to the canyon on one road and down on the other.  Before venturing up the canyon or west to Polihale, check your fuel gauge as there are no gas stations beyond Waimea.  If you are about to explore Waimea Canyon, see the following chapter on Koke‘e Sights.

 

Kekaha

 

The highway skirts the outside edge of Kekaha, the last town on the west side.  A block inland, the town's main street parallels the highway, passing a limited number of shops and restaurants.  The sugar mill in Kekaha is closed.  Idle heavy equipment waits and rusts in the mill yard, waiting its final disposition.  Former sugar workers also are unsure of their future.

 

Kekaha Beach drifts up to the highway; elevated just a few feet higher than the waves.  An uninterrupted strip of sand covers the coastline for 15 miles to the start of the cliffs at Polihale, making it the longest beach in Hawaii (see Beaches chapter).  In Hawaiian, Kekaha means "dry hot place" and you're experiencing a rare day at Kekaha if the sun isn't blazing from a clear sky.  The neighboring island of Ni‘ihau and the attendant islet of Lehua are plainly visible across the Kaulakahi Channel.

The broad, flat platform of land from Waimea River to the cliffs of Nâ Pali is called the Mana coastal plain.  Fertile land that grew sugar cane for generations now sprouts alternative crops such as seed corn and sunflower.  Rising behind the plain are numerous valleys and gulches separated by steep ridges.  Once the slopes were covered with pili, the dry, yellow grass used to thatch houses, innumerable shrubs and bushes and groves of koa, sandalwood and ‘ohi‘a lehua trees.  Perennial streams flowed from the valleys to feed a huge marsh and complex of ponds that lay below the level of the sea behind high sand dunes.  Large populations of birds lived in the marsh and fish were grown in the ponds—providing an ample supply of protein for Hawaiians living in settlements tucked between the cliffs and the swamp.  It was possible to paddle a canoe across the marsh from Waimea to the heiau at Polihale during the rainy season.

 

After western contact, cattle and goats were introduced and left to forage freely in the valleys, where they ate the grass down to the roots.  Trees were cut to provide firewood for the trading vessels that anchored at Waimea.  Chiefs ordered sandalwood trees on their land cut to feed the demand for the fragrant wood in China.  The barren land of the ridges eroded and blew into the Mana Plain, destroying its beauty.  Norwegian settler, Valdemar Knudsen, established a large cattle ranch on the plain in 1856.  Knudsen built a ditch to drain the marsh and planted sugar cane on the land.  By the 1880s, several planters were raising cane in the area.  They consolidated in 1898 forming the Kekaha Sugar Company.

 

From Kekaha, the highway cuts a straight line across the Mana Plain, emphasizing its size and flatness.  Makai of the highway are the installations of the U.S. Navy's Pacific Missile Range Facility and its underwater range.  The naval, civil service, technical and scientific staff at PMRF track everything that sails, flies or orbits the central Pacific.  The facility has a huge impact on the economy of West Kauai.  Next to state and county government and the visitor industry, the military presence on the west side is the largest single source of jobs and revenues on Kauai.  There are nearly 1,000 civilian employees on the base, not counting those working for civilian contractors, while the actual number of active-duty military stationed at PMRF is closer to one-tenth of the civilian workforce.

 

Clear skies and limited light pollution on the west side lends itself to excellent star gazing opportunities.  In 1989, amateur astronomers established the Kauai Educational Association for Science and Astronomy (KEASA) to provide astronomical education to the public.  KEASA operates an observatory on the Pacific Missile Range Facility.  The group uses a 14-inch Celestron telescope, which is housed permanently at the observatory.  KEASA (245-8250) meets monthly for stargazing on the closest Saturday to the New Moon and welcomes the public to join them at sunset.  To reach the observatory, turn makai onto Tartar Road at mile marker 30.

 

Shortly after passing the main entrance to the missile range the paved highway ends.  A pot-holed cane haul road continues through the plain and ends in five miles at Polihale State Park.  Wind has drifted deep sand into high and wide dunes that sometimes spill over to the road.  Campgrounds and picnic tables are part of the park (see Beaches chapter).  In spite of its isolated location, the park is frequented by surfers and polefishers.  They drive along the wide beach in four-wheel-drive vehicles with oversize tires.  The beach that began in Kekaha ends at the far end of Polihale, where the Na Pali cliffs begin.  Kayakers who paddled the length of Nâ Pali are picked up by drivers of the outfitting companies here.  Sacred Springs heiau is located about 200 yards inland on the cliffs.  This was where the Hawaiians believed the spirits of the dead escaped their mortal shells.  Brush grows over the heiau making it hard to find and difficult to discern its shape if you do find it.

 

Kauai's Neighbors:  Ni‘ihau, Lehua and Ka‘ula

 

Seventeen miles across the Kaulakahi Channel lies Kauai's nearest island neighbor, Ni‘ihau.  It is nicknamed the Forbidden Island because the entire island is owned by the Robinson family of Kauai and visitors are not allowed unless specifically invited.  The Robinson family descends from the Sinclairs who originally purchased the island in 1864.  About 160 people live on Ni‘ihau, the majority of whom are pure Hawaiian.  Most men work on the Robinson sheep ranch.  Traditional practices such as making shell jewelry and exporting yams and kiawe charcoal also provides them with income.  Hawaiian is the primary spoken language of Ni‘ihau's residents although English is taught in its school.  Children must travel to Kauai to continue their high school education.  Ni‘ihau families are free to travel off the island whenever they please and are allowed to invite guests to visit them.  Should they choose to live elsewhere, they are not permitted to live on Ni‘ihau again.  People and goods are shuttled to Kauai by a WWII vintage Navy landing craft.  Electricity is available only from small generators.  Ni‘ihau has no telephones, paved roads, medical clinic and no police force.  Its principle settlement is a loose collection of houses, a church and a school at Pu‘uwai.  With its long isolation and patriarchal overseer, Ni‘ihau is a sociological curiosity.

 

Ni‘ihau is the seventh-largest Hawaiian Island.  Its area covers 73 square miles and its highest point, Pani‘au, rises to 1,281 feet.  Because it lies in the lee of the high mountains of Kauai, Ni‘ihau is an arid island.  Estimates of precipitation range from 40 inches per year on the east coast to less than 20 inches in the south.  Despite the low rainfall, Ni‘ihau has the State's largest natural lake, 182-acre Halulu Lake, which at an elevation of two feet below sea level is also the lowest spot on Hawaii.  Close by is the playa, or intermittent lake, Halali‘i.  Heavy rains can swell its area to 840 acres.

Eliza Sinclair, the family matriarch and widow of a sea captain, spearheaded the purchase of Ni‘ihau.  The captain and Eliza were born in Scotland, moving to New Zealand in 1840.  Negotiations were conducted with G.H. Robertson, the Hawaiian Minister of the Interior.  Kamehameha V approved the sale for $10,000 except for two small wedges of land that had already been sold.  A condition of the sale was the right of the islanders to a little land to plant food, a place for a home and the right to fish the waters.  Three months after the purchase, the Sinclairs engaged their friend Valdemar Knudsen to negotiate for the remaining land on the island.  The landowner succumbed to Knudsen's tactic by accepting the offer of 1,000 shiny dollars laid before him.  

 

Under Hawaiian Law all beaches are held in trust by the state.  Ni‘ihau's owners believe they acquired the beaches as well as the rest of the land.  Bruce and Keith Robinson have stated that their family has a separate deed unique in Hawaii.  They assert that they purchased the land from the Hawaiian monarchy when private property rights extended to submerged lands below the beach.

 

Limited access to Ni‘ihau is granted to paying tour passengers of Ni‘ihau Helicopters.  The Robinsons purchased a helicopter to transport family members and employees between Kauai and Ni‘ihau and to evacuate Ni‘ihau residents to Kauai in medical emergencies.  The tour service was instituted to help defray the costs of operating the helicopter.  The helicopter flies over the island, being careful not to disrupt the quietness of Pu‘uwai and touches down on the north coast.

Lehua is the rocky, crescent-shaped islet about one-half mile north of Ni‘ihau.  Its highest point is 704 feet.  A lighthouse is perched atop the islet.  When it was built in the 1930s it was the highest lighthouse in the U.S. Lighthouse Service.  Lehua is uninhabited now but people have lived on it.  Some residents of Ni‘ihau chose to move to Lehua after their home island was sold to haoles in 1864.  From there, they eventually moved to Kauai.

 

Nineteen miles southwest of Ni‘ihau, the islet of Ka‘ula stands on a submerged shield volcano that once was a substantial island.  It is a vertical rock, 550 feet high and covering 136 acres.  Ka‘ula is uninhabited except for many birds.  It has always been considered a special place by the people of Ni‘ihau and appears in their mele or chants.  The natives of Ni‘ihau would travel to Ka‘ula in the summer months to catch birds.  Ka‘ula is visible from the southwest shore of Kauai on a very clear day.  Its profile can be seen to the left of Ni‘ihau.

 

 

TOP