Day 25: Waimea to Hawi: Kohala Mountain? No problem!

February 4, 2016

Ẁaimea Country Inn really is pretty good, by Hawaii standards. With its coodinated furniture, vaulted ceiling, TV, fridge, and large rooms, it is a step up from Manago or Honokaa hotels. OK, so there was a mysterious wet spot in the carpet that did not go away, and the toilet flush handle was broken, but we were ok with that. Dodie finally saw red, though, when the Hawaiian expensive sliced meat and cheese we put in the fridge spent the night at room temperature because the fridge quit.

The front desk had a theory about it. The wall switch by the door controls the outlet used by the fridge. It must have orginally been a plan to have a table lamp come on when you would first enter the room and flip the switch. The front desk lady said she had suggested to management that a sign by the switch or piece of tape over it would be a good idea. Dodie demanded to be reimbursed for her groceries. We'll see how the drama plays out, stacking our complaint in the things to follow up file, along with the bicycle charges at the National Park.

The challenge for today was to cycle up and over Kohala Mountain. Kohala is the most northerly the volcanoes on the island, and we suppose it has been extinct the longest. It is also not terribly high. The road crest is at a mere 3564 feet. Since Waimea is at 2600 feet, Kohala Mountain should not be much of a scarey climb. However the road rises quite steeply, and you do feel like you climbed something.

Last time around, Dodie's knees were really bad and Kohala was a challenge. But this time she impressed me, and herself, by simply just riding up and over the thing!

Because the lands around Waimea are mostly treeless, there are dramatic views in all directions. You can see mountains like Mauna Kea looming behind, and from up on Kohala one can look down over a goodly length of the road that goes to the coast and then turns south along the coast for Kona. This is so much different from at home on Vancouver Island, where basically all you see is trees (and more trees).

We saw quite a few wild turkeys as we headed up the mountain

The road up Kohala has a narrow shoulder, and it winds a lot. Because the hill rises to your right, most curves are to the right. That's a problem, because drivers like to cut tight around such corners, often crossing the line into what shoulder there is. A cyclist that is just around the corner is at risk. So we made a practice of hanging out in the road, to give a better sight line to us. Then we would dart right to allow the vehicle behind to pass. The saving grace was that there was not all that much traffic.

From the top, it is downhill all the way. That's about 20km of pure joy. More than ever I enjoyed the perfect temperature, brilliant greens of the fields and blue of the ocean, trees, flowers. Does your outlook ever benefit from coasting downhill!

But after some convincing they decided to come back for a chat

The Kohala Village Inn is right in the heart of Hawi, the point at which the Kohala road joins the highway from Kona. As with the other Hawaiian towns, Hawi fell into disrepair when sugar died. But now it seems to be a relatively thriving collection of a couple of dozen tourist oriented shops, a few restaurants, and the Village Inn. The Village Inn has had some nice construction done in recent years. It still styles itself "plantation style", but it has some really nice spaces (like lobby and meeting room) the rooms seem stylish, and all have hardwood floors.

From Waimea to here, Bird of Paradise plantings are very common. I like this dramatic flower.

We dropped our gear in the room and headed across the street to "Bamboo", the biggest and best known of the local restaurants. Bamboo occupies a building that started as a hotel in the early part of the 20th century, and progressed to being a grocery store. When the store (Takata) moved to a new building down the road, Bamboo took over the heritage location. We made a reservation at Bamboo, which not only does not have so many tables but also only does dinner from 6 to 7:30.

We had cycled the mountain so quickly that we still had half a day left for cycling fun. So we took the risk of again borrowing some fun from tomorrow, when the plan is to head east 15 km to the Pololu Valley lookout. Pololu is a valley a couple north up the coast from the Waipio, that we had looked into from the south. There are no roads directly from any of these valleys to the others on that coast.

By the way, further to Waipio - which was closed because of Dengue Fever risk - the paper today talks of the possibility of a state of emergency being declared here to combat Dengue. This is thankfully not because the number of cases has exploded, but rather the infections have just not stopped. They are rolling along at a low rate.

Heading east, there is another little town like Hawi, called Kapa'au. It's a touch smaller perhaps, but has the same cluster of tourist shops. Kapa'au has two other special attractions. The first is a statue of Kamehemeha I. This is the "original" one, while a copy stands in Honolulu. The story is that in 1878 the Hawaiian legislature commisioned the statue, which was cast in Paris and shipped. The ship went down around the Falklands. The Hawaiians used the insurance money to secure a dulicate statue. But later the original turned up, having been salvaged. So that is the one we have in Kapa'au.

The other special attraction is the Kamehameha Rock. First off, to be clear, there are definitely two rocks or 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 checked out. 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. For the second year in a row I tried to move it myself. But it seems to be stuck? 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. I tried rolling it too, but as I say, it seems stuck!

There are three gulleys on the way to Pololu. Because we were doing so well, we cruised through the first one, just for fun. But before the second we came to our senses about using up all the fun, and turned back.

Episcopal church of St Augustine - very typical small tropical church. Unlike in Europe, we have not been trying to look in to churches.

Oh,oh, But actually the situation has not worsened.

Behind our room a hula class was going on. We asked the teacher if we could observe, and found the students to be very good. The rhythms and songs the teacher was doing were very similar to what you can actually hear in the Disney film Lilo and Stitch.

We found the only serious ukelele store so far, but it was closed. Shot this through the window. The instruments look like beautiful koa ones. I think one price tag could say $3000. We will look for the store to be open before we leave. It would be nice to buy an instrument, but about $100 would be the limit. Strangely, you actually can see $100 koa ukeleles on Amazon.

In Hawi we walked through all the shops, waiting for Bamboo to open. Amid the tourist trinkets is some genuinely high quality artwork and furniture, as well as smaller beautiful pieces, like cutting boards, made from koa. We found some more of those koa rocking chairs - each a treasure and priced $6,000-7,000, plus koa tables and sideboards. No fine furniture piece made from koa costs under $6,000.

Finally at Bamboo, we were greeted so nicely by all staff. Good service is clearly one of their strong points. We recognized our waiter, and remarked that he had also been here last year. His reply was that in fact he has worked there for 18 years. He says he treasures the chance to live in this small Hawaiian town, and that he started coming here in the 1980's.

During our time in Hawaii we have been feeling that the food overall is weakening us. Yes, there is the good fruit, but you can't eat only fruit. Other food we've been getting just has not felt healthful. I put this as a paradox to Dodie, since lots of magazine articles extoll the available Hawaiian food. We think the answer is that you can get good stuff, but the cost is too high to be realistic. Bamboo, for example, uses as much local product as possible. Great. The only thing, Dodie's Coconut Coated Mahi Mahi was $27. My Kalua Pork with Cabbage was in the lowest price category, at $18. But ok, it was all good. And we expect to have a lot of strength until we eat some more Love's bread at breakfast tomorrow.

At Bamboo, there is bamboo wall covering in spots. Jeremy/Melissa, how about this in your new cottage?

Good food at Bamboo, but for us, big bucks.

Today's ride: 51 km (32 miles)
Total: 830 km (515 miles)

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