Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
On the practical side, bring gear so you can swim and snorkel at beaches that catch
your fancy along the way. There's no gas east of Kaunakakai but there is an excellent
small grocery and lunch counter about halfway, in Pukoʻo. Most of the choicest rentals
are also found along this drive. Mile markers simplify finding things.
FISHPONDS
Starting just east of Kaunakakai and continuing past mile marker 20 are dozens of
loko iʻa(fishponds), huge circular walls of rocks that are part of one of the world's
most advanced forms of aquaculture. Monumental in size, backbreaking in cre-
ation, the fishponds operate on a simple principle: little fish swim in, big fish can't
swim out. Some of the ponds are obscured and overgrown by mangroves, but oth-
ers have been restored by locals anxious to preserve this link to their past. The
lent shape and is tended to bykonohiki(caretakers) who live simply on site. Anoth-
er good one is at mile marker 13 in ʻUalapuʻe (see below).
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Kawela
Kawela, shortly before the 6-mile marker. It has a couple of picnic tables and is always
popular for that high point in the locals' weekend calendar: the family picnic. This park
that is open to the public. Most of the 20-acre refuge is inland from the road. It includes
freshwater marshland, with a dense growth of bulrushes and an inland freshwater fish-
pond that has been expanded to provide a home for endangered birds, including the
Hawaiian stilt and coot. Look for the nene, the goose-like Hawaiian state bird.
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Kamalo
You can't help but be swept away by the quaint charm of little
St Joseph's Church
MAP
. It's one of only two still standing of the four island churches that missionary and
saint Father Damien built outside of the Kalaupapa Peninsula. (The other, Our Lady of
Seven Sorrows, is 4 miles further on). This simple, one-room wooden church, dating
