Day 20: Hawi to Kapa'au and beyond (and back): Hiding Out

December 6, 2014

Normally we will not let rain deter us from cycling. If we did that, we would never get anywhere. Instead, we just put on the raincoats and go. But today was a scheduled day to just scout around this North Kohala coast. The Weather Channel was certainly onside. They gave the forecast as sunny, with 0 percent chance of rain. Yes, no chance, at all! I took a screen shot at 9 a.m. to illustrate this. Then I took a photo out our window. Obviously the Weather Channel does not have the luxury of a window. Now, at 9:30 it is pouring, and we are watching TV.

Thanks for the great info, Weather Channel!

We have not been hiding inside all morning, though. We did venture across the street to the Farmers' Market. It is reasonably sized, with about 40 vendors, and has a better variety of prepared foods than at Hilo. We got to try breadfruit chips, for example. It's a natural idea, but despite the oil and salt is just not as addictive as potato chips. Papaya is 3 for $2, and apple bananas about $1.50 for a bunch. There is a lady with a lot of Thai food. It looks good, but we are too stuffed to try any, having also eaten an Egg McBagel at the Kohala Coffee Mill, around the corner in town.

The Hawi farmers' market has a fair number of interesting vendors

Papayas, 3 for $2. (The lady in the back is grandma, of course)

While waiting for the rain to stop, we have time to read the Guestbook. (Always remember to click Guestbook at the top of each page of the blog). So that's how we learned that there is a slightly spicy history to our hotel. The former owner was a drug dealer who escaped from prison in California and came to make a new life in this sleepy hamlet. He got married and had two sons here. During his residence he ran a mortgage company, published the Kohala Mountain News, and purchased several properties, including this hotel, (the Kohala Village Inn) and a restaurant called Luke's Place. He eventually got picked up in Kona, a few years ago, for DUI, and was identified by fingerprints. He fled to Thailand, but was eventually extradited. So, we are hiding out in Hawi too, but only from the rain!

More soon, I hope

... Well the rain did quit, so we moseyed over to the adjacent town of Kapa'au. It's just 4 km down the road, and features a few more of the same type of buildings and businesses found in Hawi. A big feature in Kapa'au is a, actually "the", Kamehameha statue. The statue was being shipped from where it was cast in Paris, in 1878, but the ship and statue were lost at sea near the Falkland Islands. With the insurance money, a new one was ordered and eventually erected in Honolulu. However the original was salvaged and repaired and erected here.

Another Kamehameha legendary thing concerns the Kamehameha Rock. This much we know for sure: There is a rock by the roadside, with a government erected sign beside it, saying " Kamehameha Rock", and it is bloody heavy. The website waymarking.com says of it:

"As the legend goes, the reason for this 1000 lb rock at this site is that it was carried this far by King Kamehameha to show off his strength to his men when they were transporting all the washed lava stones/rocks from the "Pololu Valley" to build the "Pu'ukohola Haeiu""

Now, we do believe that a lot of stone from Pololu has been used for construction all around here, including for the Haeiu (temple). However, a guide book we noticed at Kohala Coffee just claimed that the rock is famous alright, and was being moved by truck when it fell off. Somebody (probably the lame County government) decided the rock "wanted" to be there, so they left it. . If we get a chance tomorrow, we will recheck on exactly what the book said.

Dodie is not supporting the "carried by Kamehameha" story, maybe based on the fact that I (known to be very powerful) could not budge it at all. I suggested that maybe he had someone on the other end, but this has been summarily rejected.

Beyond Kapa'au the foliage becomes noticeably more lush, particularly in the several gulches. There is again lots of banana, and papaya, and all sorts of flowering shrubs. If you don't want to live in Pahoa, then this could be the spot to buy a idyllic Hawaiian retreat. There should even be a photo below of my recommended spot!

We stopped a km or two short of the Pololu Valley, and crawled our way back through the gulches. We stopped at the Takata Market, which is well known as the largest in the district. In fact it was not all that large, did not have much of what we wanted (like prepared sandwiches or salads) and had notably high prices. One that blew us away was the over $6 for a plain loaf of sandwich bread. On the other hand, at $2.99, Ritter Sport was about the same as in Victoria (which is more than twice the price at Waldenbuch in Germany, where we visited the factory last year). The Ritter bars were genuine made in Waldenbuch stuff - its amazing how they made it all the way here!

The largest food market in the district - is actually pretty sucky

Over $6 for normal fluffy bread, and this was not even the most costly brand.

Ritter Sport, all the way from Waldenbuch!

Back at the Village Inn, we surveyed our food resources for supper tonight and for three meals tomorrow. Well, we did get some "apple bananas" at Takata (these are super yummy), and some noodle stuff. We have a banana bread and three papayas from the farmers' market too, plus some tuna and cracker packs that we have taken to calling the "cat food". We should be ok, but did not get one of those Ritter Sports. So just for balance we stopped by Kohala Coffee Mill and bought fudge. That all sounds pretty balanced now!

A tropical church - interesting, but it's not as if we will be looking for any awesome photos of the soaring arches

A pretty nice cycling road, and of course, no snow!

A roadside cafe specialising in coconut water.

The final word on the stones

Well, at least let's call it the final word, though there are all kinds of stories floating around. First off, to be clear, there are definitely two stones. One, the Naha Stone, is in Hilo. It is the 5-7,000 pound item that Kamehameha flipped over, establishing his future as ruler of all Hawaii. Then there is the little 1,000 pound stone near Kapa'au. That is the one we are talking about.

The concensus seems to be that Kamehameha moved it up from the beach to this point. A road crew tried to remove it by putting it on a wagon, but it repeatedly fell off. So they concluded it wanted to stay there.

Clearly, if Kamehameha could flip the 7,000 pound one, he could move the little one. Dodie points out that he need not have bench pressed it, but could have rolled it. Hey, at this time of year we also believe in Santa Claus!

Today's ride: 20 km (12 miles)
Total: 603 km (374 miles)

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