Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Camping is allowed in a peaceful grassy field a quarter of a mile before the overlook.
There's a picnic pavilion and a portable toilet here (although there are good bathrooms
near the main parking area). It rains a lot here and outside of the summer dry season,
your tent will likely be drenched by evening showers.
DON'T MISS
POST-A-NUT
Why settle for a mundane postcard or, worse, an emailed photo of you looking like
a tan-lined git, when it comes to taunting folks in the cold climes you've left be-
hind? Instead, send a coconut. Gary Lam, the world-class postmaster of the
Hoʻole-
free. Choose from the oodles of markers and write the address right on the husk.
Add a cartoon or two. Im-agine the joy when a loved one waits in a long line for a
parcel and is handed a coconut! Depending on the size of your nut, postage costs
$8 to $13 and takes three to six days to reach any place in the US; other countries
cost more and take longer - and you may run into quarantine issues.
If Lam, who takes the time to apply a panopoly of colored stamps to each
coconut, was in charge of the postal service, its current financial woes would likely
vanish.
TOP OF CHAPTER
Hoʻolehua
Hoʻolehua is the dry plains area that sep-arates eastern and western Molokaʻi. Here, in
the 1790s, Kamehameha the Great trained his warriors in a year-long preparation for the
invasion of Oʻahu.
Hoʻolehua was settled as an agricultural community in 1924, as part of the first distri-
bution of land under the Hawaiian Homes Commission Act, which made public lands
available to Native Hawaiians. Water was scarce in this part of Molokaʻi and Hoʻolehua
pineapple farms drew settlers as the spiky fruit required little irrigation. But the locals
were soon usurped by the pineapple giants Dole, Del Monte and Libby. Most were forced
to lease their lands to the plantations.
Today the plantations are gone, but locals continue to plant small crops of fruits, vege-
tables and herbs. And Hawaiians continue to receive land deeds in Hoʻolehua in accord-
ance with the Hawaiian Homes Commission Act.
