Great Drives and Destinations: Following the Sun on Molokai

Story and photography by
Eric Anderson 

Says Richard Sullivan, author of Driving and Discovering Hawaii, “Molokai is as brimful of awe inspiring beauty as its roads are devoid of traffic. Molokai is a motorist’s dream and a motorcyclist’s heaven.” Sullivan wrote his book in 1996 but nothing has changed. Not much changes on Molokai. The population was only 2307 in 1896 though today it’s 7345 – but that’s the same as ten years ago. This is an island where not much is going on. Yet it’s absolutely worth a visit as one of the few places where you can still drive and see the Old Hawaii.

The Car

You’re not going to be ferrying a car from the mainland but there’s an Alamo car rental office at the small airport. Your choices may be limited to your wallet and what Alamo has available. If you are renting your car and you’re not a travel columnist or a car journalist scrounging it from some other source, what you get is what Alamo has. And you’ve been sensible enough to reserve in advance if you want to drive the Old Hawaii, right?

The Dodge Avenger is an interesting car. Most Chrysler products are in terms of predicting what Fiat might achieve now that Chrysler has shaken off the Mercedes yoke – and survived. The Avenger is a relatively inexpensive vehicle; the MRCP base prices run from just above $19,000 to almost $24,000 for the four models.

It will work well for entry level buyers and enthusiastic young drivers. In fact, the advertizing is geared to them. Thus we read “Avenger is heavy on attitude…has an aggressive front…and a distinctive ‘kick-up’ in the rear door” and so on. But it comes with many options that might please an older driver.

The most important question,of course, is which engine do you want? The 4-speed automatic 2.4-liter Inline 4 DOHC 16-valve dual variable valve timing engine with 173 hp at 6,000 RPM or the 6-speed automatic 3.6-liter V6 24-valve VVT engine with 283 hp at 6,4000 RPM?

As the cost of gas continues to climb these engine options create more long-term ramifications than your choice of others such as the Media Center with CD/MP3 alone or with a 30GB hard drive that can hold 6,700 songs. (For options see this comprehensive page of the Dodge website.)

The four models otherwise have similar stats. 4-door, 5-seat sedan. Width 72.8”, length 192.6”, height 58.4”. Trunk capacity 13.5 cu ft, fuel tank 16.9 gal, base curb wt 3394 lbs, 4-wheel disc brakes. Rack & pinion steering. Compact spare wheel. Antilock 4-wheel disc brakes. Traction and electronic stability control. Sentry key. A trunk pass through for skis – though, in Hawaii, you’d have problems trying to get a surf board to fit through it. A “Chill Zone” storage bin lets you cool as many as four 12-oz soda cans. On the other hand. those living in the snow belt might prefer the capability to start the car from as far away as 300 feet with the available remote start feature. And lots of airbags: All models have advanced multistage driver and front-passenger air bags, supplemental side-curtain air bags, and supplemental driver and front-passenger seat mounted air bags. It’s no surprise to find Avenger earned a five-star front impact crash test rating, the highest possible, from the NHTSA. This is comforting when you hear a kid say: “I’m gonna get the smaller car with the bigger engine ‘cause it will have a bigger fun factor!”

The Drive

Tourists who choose to visit tend not to rhapsodize about another exciting day in Paradise. The little island of Molokai is absolutely not the Hawaii of glitz and glamour. And that is absolutely the way the locals like it.

Your air choice to fly in is easy. Fly Hawaiian Airlines. It works better with the Inter-Island flights and when you are crossing the Pacific on Hawaiian Airlines you are using a long-established airline whose attendants really seem nicer than most flight crews. And with their enthusiasm, it’s as if you are already there even before you actually get there.

The hotel choice is even easier. There’s only one, the Hotel Molokai, a simple hotel but it does a pretty good job of looking after its guests. There are also condominium choices.

The Hotel Molokai has an oceanfront location, a restaurant with nightly entertainment, and a pool. It’s only two miles to the ferry location at Kaunakakai, the only town on Molokai. Most landlubbers would enjoy the ferry trip from Maui but handling the afternoon return going back east to Maui against the current of the Molokai Channel can be unpleasant. Ferry in to Molokai but fly out makes sense.

Driving to follow the sun creates a logical experience on this 38 mile long, 10 mile wide island. There’s no rush hour although if you want to get to the east end of the island to see the sunrise you have to leave the hotel in the dark. Advice: the 27 mile-long road to Halawa becomes tortuous and close to the water’s edge at about the halfway stage. You might want to photograph your sunrise before you get on to such a winding road. But the kid was right. This car is fun! It gives a solid sense of holding the road and the lights carry a surprising distance. Complete the drive east once visibility makes the road safer. You can’t drive any farther than the tiny green-painted wooden Ierusalema Hou Church that was built in 1948. If the light allows it you will get a glimpse of one of the two local waterfalls as you drive to the church.

The road carries warnings on the habitat of the Nene, the Hawaiian state bird, a variety of Hawaiian Goose. A rare land bird unknown even to Audubon it was threatened with extinction until protected in 1949. It has adapted to living on lava beds by transforming its web feet into claws.

On the way back from Halawa you pass, on the right, the Church of the Lady of the Seven Sorrows, one of four built on the island by Father Damien, now St. Damien of Molokai, who came to look after the patients with Hansen’s Disease exiled to the island. Like other churches on this island of the Old Hawaii it holds its doors open to travelers. Beyond, close to the 14 mile marker on the left of the road beside a pig farm (sic transit gloria), stands a monument dedicated to Smith and Bronte the intrepid aviators who, in 1927, made the first civilian Trans-Pacific crossing between California and Hawaii – and running out of fuel over the south shore of Molokai crash-landed their plane at this spot.

Ernest Smith, like Lindbergh an airline pilot and Emory Smith a merchant marine captain his navigator, took off from Oakland California in a 27-foot long Travel Air single engine monoplane on July 15, 1927 six weeks after Lindbergh’s famous flight to Paris. They were aiming for Honolulu but landed 100 miles short. It was still a record and a brave adventure.

A few miles farther west on the south side of the highway is another reminder of the real hero of Molokai, Father Damien. The morning light is warming the walls of St. Joseph’s, another church built by this modest Belgian priest but inside, beyond the unlocked door, all is cool and peaceful. Father Damien built four churches on Molokai, two still in existence. He is, of course, beloved on this small island – and across the world.

The island has an older history than that of Father Damien. All along the coastal drive back to town lies evidence of the royal fishponds created 600 to 700 years ago, and now being restored. In the Hawaiian village community the fishponds provided most of the protein in the native diet. It is exhilarating to get out of the car and stand beside those ancient walls. The fishponds were cleverly designed: the walls and gates allowed small fish to come in from the ocean but the openings were so small predators could not enter. Meanwhile the small fish were growing bigger and soon were ready for the kitchen. The sun is still high in the sky and it’s too early for dinner as children beyond the walls use the ocean as playground for surfboat paddling.

The drive on to the West End now swings north to the Molokai Museum and Cultural Center where visitors can read about the island’s history and enjoy its shell collection. The former R.W.Meyer Sugar Mill stands beside the museum. The mill, built in 1878, is the oldest in Hawaii. It was restored with assistance from the Meyer family and is now listed on the National Register of Historic Sites.

The choice now is to head west or continue on to the overlook above the Kalaupapa Peninsula to where the ceremonial six foot-high Phallic Rock sits on a small hill a five minute walk above the overlook car park. A guide in town says he once brought a church group to this site. Two little ladies went up first to see if the five-minute walk was worth it. They returned apparently saying, “It was no big deal!”

The site now within the Palaau State Park in a grove of ironwood and eucalyptus tree is sacred. Barren women bearing offerings have come for centuries. They would spend the night in the hopes of having a child one day. They still come: fresh flowers lie on the ground around the stone.

The sun is getting lower in the sky. Time to move on to Maunaloa to meet it. The little town there seems despondent as if it has fallen on difficult times. It has. The ranch here that was the second choice on the island to accommodate tourists has closed. There is now no organized farming in the area and Maunaloa does not sparkle as it once did. It formerly had a Sheraton hotel and a small cinema in town. Fortunately still there on the Mauna Loa Highway is the village store that calls itself the Big Wind Kite Factory. It’s owned by an upbeat couple who would raise anyone’s spirits – although we hear they are not true islanders, they have been here for only 35 years.

Jonathan used to write jokes for Mel Blanc, the comedian who was, among other things, the voice of Bugs Bunny. “I was fired,” the Kite Man says, “for being a wiseass!”

We ask Jonathan Socher why he and his wife, Daphne chose making kites their career. He replies, “We’re not sure we really chose this; it was really the only thing that worked.” They’d traveled all over the world: Greece, South America, India buying in some places and selling in others but, in 1974, they went back to Los Angeles to lend a hand to the family business of selling military surplus. “We helped run the family business into bankruptcy,” says Jonathan, “then we came to the islands on vacation because I found I could collect California Unemployment on Hawaii!”

A friend told him a man was selling kites on the beach near the Sheraton on Honolulu, making $200 to $300 a day at weekends. “I was a young misguided hippie but I found this location on Molokai and opened shop. I found also this was the life. I tell customers you’re looking up, the kite string is pulling the tension out of you, and the more kites you buy the lighter your luggage gets.”

Stopping here is fun but the sun is now low in the sky and we want to photograph the sunset over the ocean. “Where’s the beach?” we ask Jonathan. “Down by the water,” he replies. “It’s not up here in the mountains!”

The surfers are not Californians. We talk to one and not once did he call us “dude.” It’s been a busy but interesting day. We relax on one of the West End beaches. Surfers are enjoying the waves and continue long after the sun has set. It’s their relaxation, too.

  

The author is a member of the Motor Press Guild, the largest automotive media association in North America. There are currently about 750 members in the United States. Anderson, also a member of the Society of American Travel Writers, has written five books and writes regularly on cruises and travel for the websites of Physician’s Money Digest and Traveling Boy