Hawaii: A Small Drive on the Big Island

  

Story and photography by
Nancy & Eric Anderson 

 

Hawaii became a little bit closer now that Hawaiian Airlines has renewed its nonstop between San Diego and Honolulu. The nonstop makes taking one more flight so much easier, a mere puddle jump; it's only another 45 minutes to Kona on the leeward, best, side of the Big Island.

It's not all that big actually – about half the size of Massachusetts – though its people smile a lot more than the Yankees and, for many visitors, driving there is more fun than struggling along the Mass Pike or through Boston's Big Dig. Sure gasoline prices are high -- the local joke is visitors should FedEx some from their home to get on arrival – and rental prices are well above what is charged in, say, Florida, but the roads are straight and well maintained, parking is fairly easy and what the locals call Rush Hour would make Southern Californians' lips curl in amusement.

At the time of our recent visit, Dollar had the best prices and an easy pickup at Kona airport; indeed all the car rental lots are a mere half mile from the baggage carousels. We'd heard that, even in laid-back Hawaii, car break-ins do happen and that convertibles may be inviting trouble so we settled for a Chrysler sedan and its big trunk. Then it was off to the north along Highway 19, the highway of Queen Ka'ahumanu. Useful guides for tourists are the highway mileage markers prominently displayed along the road and on maps. For example, from the airport you join this main highway around marker 93 and go past the famous Mauna Kea Beach Resort (best beach on the island) at marker 68. Staying there or at the Hapuna Beach Prince Resort next door would be the highlight of any Big Island stay -- but there is also public beach access nearby.

In the 25 miles you've now made on Highway 19 you've passed signs warning about donkey crossings at dawn and twilight and, undoubtedly, noticed the low key white coral graffiti on the black and brown 'a'a lava beds. (It seems everyone was here except Kilroy.) In places colorful bougainvilleas burst out of the brown rock, planted to brighten the scene as do the kiawe trees, all said to be descended from the first kiawes brought as seedlings from, of all places, Paris. They make the flat lava plains look like the African veldt.

The road climbs slowly after Kawaihae, and the land becomes more rolling and green. It takes moisture to breakdown the 'a'a lava and the fields on the slopes of 5,505 foot-high Kohala benefit from that mountain's rain. A ten mile drive northeast brings visitors to the little town of Waimea, "like a town in Northern California but prettier" It's more like 1950s Mid America or parts of today's rural Australia: store facades, horses, little shops, wide open spaces. Nearby is the Parker Ranch, the largest ranch in the whole of the United States – yeah, bigger even than the King Ranch in, where else, Texas.

Waimea also has a neat little restaurant the Hawaiian Style Café whose hearty breakfasts, designed for the paniolo cowboys who work the Parker Ranch, would have knocked even big-eater John Wayne off his feet. Merriman's in town maybe more elegant but the Café sure gives value.

Two miles west back from Waimea brings up highway 250, the Kohala Mountain Road that wanders northwest over the shoulder of the mountain to Hawi, a sleepy village full of surprises: little churches, intimate graveyards, ice cream shops (ices from Tropical Dreams would make Clint's day) and, two miles east in Kap'au, stands the famous statue of Hawaii's most famous king, Kamehameha I. Cast in Paris it was lost at sea near the Falkland Islands en route to Hawaii. It was later salvaged and actually discovered standing in Port Stanley in the Falklands by the very sea captain who lost it. He then bought it for $500 and brought it to its final resting place.

The presence of Kamehameha the Great is everywhere on the Big Island. He was born there. And he must have seen the same sunsets that renew visitors as they come off the mountain and cruise slowly once more to the glorious beaches and resorts of the Kohala Coast.

Slowly because who wants to hurry a day in Paradise.