Photo: Waimea Plantation Cottages
Image 1 of 14
One of the dwellings at Waimea Plantation Cottages in Kauai. less
One of the dwellings at Waimea Plantation Cottages in Kauai.
Photo: Waimea Plantation Cottages
Image 2 of 14
One of the dwellings at Waimea Plantation Cottages in Kauai. less
One of the dwellings at Waimea Plantation Cottages in Kauai.
Photo: Waimea Plantation Cottages
Image 3 of 14
Couple at Waimea Canyon overlook. less
Couple at Waimea Canyon overlook.
Photo: Tor Johnson, Hawaii Tourism Authority
Image 4 of 14
A wide view of Waimea Canyon on Kauai’s west side. less
A wide view of Waimea Canyon on Kauai’s west side.
Photo: Tor Johnson, Hawaii Tourism Authority
Image 5 of 14
One of the dwellings at Waimea Plantation Cottages in Kauai. less
One of the dwellings at Waimea Plantation Cottages in Kauai.
Photo: Waimea Plantation Cottages
Image 6 of 14
A rainbow arcs over Waimea Plantation Cottages in Kauai. less
A rainbow arcs over Waimea Plantation Cottages in Kauai.
Photo: Waimea Plantation Cottages
Image 7 of 14
The rugged geography in the Waimea area on the west edge of Kauai. less
The rugged geography in the Waimea area on the west edge of Kauai.
Photo: Waimea Plantation Cottages
Image 8 of 14
The beach near Waimea Plantation Cottages in Kauai. less
The beach near Waimea Plantation Cottages in Kauai.
Photo: Waimea Plantation Cottages
Image 9 of 14
(group caption .8, .4, .12) An aerial view of Waimea town and pier in Kauai. less
(group caption .8, .4, .12) An aerial view of Waimea town and pier in Kauai.
Photo: Robert Coello, Hawaii Tourism Authority
Image 10 of 14
An aerial view of Polihale Beach in Kauai. less
An aerial view of Polihale Beach in Kauai.
Photo: Robert Coello, Hawaii Tourism Authority
Image 11 of 14
The interior of a cottage at Waimea Plantation Cottages. less
The interior of a cottage at Waimea Plantation Cottages.
Photo: Waimea Plantation Cottages
Image 12 of 14
The kitchen of a cottage at Waimea Plantation Cottages. less
The kitchen of a cottage at Waimea Plantation Cottages.
Photo: Waimea Plantation Cottages
Image 13 of 14
Scenery at Waimea Plantation Cottages. less
Scenery at Waimea Plantation Cottages.
Photo: Waimea Plantation Cottages
Quiet Kauai’s wild west
1 / 14
Back to Gallery
Despite its name, Wrangler’s Steakhouse in Waimea additionally offers local fish, lamb from Niihau and the plantation-era lunch box known as a kau kau tin.
Chatting along with the server in Hawaiian, our guide from a morning trip to Kauai’s remote Polihale Beach separated his kau kau tin’s small, stacked cans of beef teriyaki, shrimp tempura and rice — a legacy of Japanese sugar cane workers that arrived in the late 1800s. My friend happily tucked in to the lamb burger, made on the nearby island of Niihau, where isolation imposed by generations of a family originally from Scotland has actually helped maintain the language we were overhearing.
Meanwhile, I tucked in to grilled butterfish, a local favorite, while gazing across Wrangler’s cowhide-draped porch at a statue of British explorer Capt. James Cook, that introduced the West to Hawaii here in 1778.
We had unwittingly ordered a Garden Island cultural sampler. along with a edge of history.
Along along with the fairly grand canyon that shares Waimea’s name, those same cultures have actually additionally contributed to the flavor of Old West on Kauai’s west side: real-life wranglers, towns that time has actually passed by and the enduring presence of indigenous individuals here long prior to white pioneers.
The region renowned for its red dirt may not boast any luxury resorts to monitor it into, however it has actually a small-town, big-outdoors appeal that’s refreshingly familiar and foreign all at once.
Cook’s landing
We gained a literal perspective on Waimea and its environments by pulling off Kaumualii Highway — the main road, named for Kauai’s last independent king — simply prior to crossing the Waimea River in to town.
We turned in to Russian Fort Elizabeth State Historical Park, a long (and variously spelled) name for a site along with not much to explore, beyond the grass-tufted rock walls of the star-shaped fortification. Built in 1817 by an enterprising German doctor on behalf of an Alaska-based Russian trading company, the fort was quickly abandoned on Russia’s orders and dismantled by 1864.
Still, from its riverside heights, you Can easily view a panorama similar to exactly what greeted Cook’s sailors aboard the HMS Resolution and Discovery. The island of Niihau lies 18 miles to the west, a shadowy reasonable wall on the horizon, while scrubby green pali (cliffs) rise to the east and north, pointing the method to Waimea Canyon and Polihale.
The flatlands below would certainly have actually held as numerous or much more thatched-roof huts of Hawaiians compared to the modest homes and buildings we see today. The murky river, whose name means “reddish-brown water,” keeps adding much more sediment to the gentle shoreline where Cook sent a lieutenant in search of an anchorage and fresh water.
Fifteen years after that fateful landing (and 14 after Cook’s slaying in a skirmish at Kealakekua Bay on the Big Island), Cook’s former midshipman, Capt. George Vancouver, introduced cattle to Hawaii as a gift to King Kamehameha I.
The royal chief put the long-horned beasts under a protective ban (kapu) however by 1830, their destructive proliferation on the Big Island prompted Kamehameha III to invite vaqueros from Spanish California to rein them in. Dubbing these cowboys paniolo for the language they spoke, español, Hawaiians quickly adopted their practices, and adapted some to local ways.
This week’s Waimea Town Celebration, for example, includes classic rodeo events and inductions in to the Kauai and Niihau Cowboy Hall of Fame, and the West Kauai Visitor Focus in Waimea hosts an exhibit on Kauai and Niihau paniolo every February through June.
It’s a point of pride here that Hawaiian cowboys initial rode the range while the Old West was a youngster.
Looking southeast from Russian Fort Elizabeth, you Can easily see the grasslands of Makaweli Ranch, where cattle graze on much more compared to 25,000 acres. Scottish widow and sheep rancher Eliza Sinclair bought the land in 1865, a year after purchasing virtually all of the 72-square-mile island of Niihau from King Kamehameha IV.
The Robinsons, her fifth-generation descendants, now create grass-fed beef from short-horn Red Angus cattle on their Kauai pastures, and free-range lamb and eland (a type of antelope) from livestock on the “Forbidden Island,” nicknamed for its decades of little or no access to visitors.
Talking the talk
While visitors Can easily see some of Niihau on a pricey helicopter tour that lands on a remote beach, you’ll meet Niihauans, and see much more of their culture, everywhere on Kauai’s west side, where numerous families moved to job for the now-defunct Gay & Robinson Sugar Plantation in Makaweli.
Just north of Wrangler’s is the Waimea Hawaiian Church, where Niihauans gather at 9 a.m. Sundays to worship and sing in their native language (everyone is welcome). Eavesdropping on our server’s conversation along with our guide at Wrangler’s, Hawaiian cultural scholar Lopaka Bukoski, I hear the distinctive “t” sound that often replaces “k” in the Niihau dialect: They both have actually roots on the island.
Bukoski, that like numerous Hawaiians has actually a profound awareness of his genealogy, turns out to be related to Ilei Beniamina, a Niihau native that advocated for Hawaiian-language education that now flourishes on the west side. prior to her death in 2010, Beniamina additionally perpetuated the island’s tradition of making jewelry from delicate shells (pupu) that Can easily take months to collect, and simply as numerous to craft in to lei and necklaces that Can easily sell for thousands of dollars. A few much less pricey however still exquisite examples of pupu o Niihau are for sale at Wrangler’s, which has actually a small gift shop as well as Waimea’s only full-service restaurant.
Niihauans have actually a reputation for strict church attendance and refraining from alcohol, so Strategy ahead if you’re going out for dinner on Sundays, as quickly as most dining establishments are closed, or if you’re looking to down a beer along with a meal.
Even the diner called Da Booze Shack has actually a sign saying it serves “God, not alcohol.”
A helping of history
Wrangler’s is owned by Colleen and Mike Faye, whose Norwegian ancestor helped make an additional large west edge West edge sugar plantation, eventually called Kekaha Sugar Co.
H.P. Faye had come to Kauai at the behest of his uncle, Valdemar Knudsen, that had married in to the Sinclair-Robinson family and began planting cane in 1878. along with the victory of efforts to drain swamp lands and bringing much more water down from the mountains, the plantation, like others across the islands, desperately required much more laborers.
That demand brought a supply of workers from Japan, that for decades lived in modest cottages in plantation-owned camps, sharing lunch in kau kau tins along along with Filipinos and various other ethnic groups.
Kekaha Sugar closed in 2000, and today some of its employees’ former homes are among the 60 cottages and houses of Waimea Plantation Cottages, a sprawling, quiet sanctuary along the dark-sand, driftwood-strewn Waimea Beach. My friend and I enjoyed the view from the large lanai of No. 51, named for Charlie Kaneyama, a photographer for the Kekaha Sugar plantation newspaper that was a big band leader in to his 80s.
Also owned by the Fayes, Waimea Plantation Cottages is now managed by a Canadian company, Coast Hotels, which is pouring money in to upgraded furnishings, including flat-screen TVs and high-speed Internet, however along with no plans to modification the low-key ambience.
“You Can easily feel your blood stress shed when you drive in to town,” says Gregg Enright, the hotel’s general manager since January 2015, “and then you arrive here, and it drops again.”
Bukoski, that grew up along with “Uncle Mike and Aunty Colleen,” as he calls the Fayes, now works for Enright as the front desk manager at Waimea Plantation Cottages. He remembers as quickly as Kekaha was a bustling town along with shops and restaurants.
“It Can easily be sad for me to return residence and see it like this,” he says as we drive through exactly what has actually become a bedroom community for the controversial seed companies tilling fields en route to Polihale. Surfers additionally rent homes here, as do workers at the Pacific Missile Range Facility at Barking Sands, 5 miles northwest.
Called Nohili in Hawaiian, the dunes at Barking Sands have actually restricted access now, however combined along with those of Polihale State Park, they form a broad, 17-mile-long stretch of light golden sand. Bukoski’s energy picks up as we approach the entrance to Polihale, known to Hawaiians as a jumping-off point for spirits headed to the afterworld.
“This is my piko (navel), my source, where my family would certainly put up a tent and live all summer. We’d play in the sun while my parents would certainly drive in to work,” he explained.
Community volunteers rebuilt the notoriously bumpy access road here in 2009, so our 20-minute drive is only mildly rattling, along with a brief pause to admire a deer darting in to the brush. At the end of the unpaved road, dark pockmarked cliffs rise steeply from the warm sand and rocks being pummeled by winter waves.
We won’t go in the water today, however we’ve had a dip in to the Old, Old West all the same.
Jeanne Cooper is a former travel editor for The San Francisco Chronicle. E-mail: travel@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @Hawaii_Insider
If you go
Getting there
United Airlines flies nonstop everyday to Kauai’s Lihue airport from San Francisco, while Alaska Airlines flies nonstop several times a week from Oakland and San Jose. Hawaiian Airlines will certainly offer seasonal nonstop flights to Kauai from Oakland from May 27 through Sept. 5. From Lihue, it’s 25 miles, or concerning a 40-minute drive, to Waimea.
All addresses below are in Waimea.
Where to stay
Waimea Plantation Cottages: 9400 Kaumualii Hwy., (800) 992-4632, http://ift.tt/20Ycdnp. The sprawling, low-key beachfront resort has actually one-, two- and three-bedroom cottages (plus a few larger homes) in garden-view, ocean-view and oceanfront categories, so rates range widely as well as seasonally; in March, they’re $169 to $749. All units include full kitchens.
Inn Waimea: 4469 Halepule Road, (808) 652-6852, http://ift.tt/1Sk8zm8. The former parsonage has actually one room and one suite downstairs along with king bed and two suites upstairs along with queen bed and sofa sleeper; $135-$150. The inn additionally manages rentals of newly renovated cabins at Kokee State Park ($59-$119), and four beach and mountain vacation rentals in Waimea and Kekaha ($179-$395).
Where to eat
Wrangler’s Steakhouse: 9852 Kaumualii Hwy., (808) 338-1218. Western-themed full-service restaurant along with island beef, lamb and seafood, plus a porch for people-watching.
Gina’s: 9691 Kaumualii Hwy., (808) 338-1731. Hole in the wall along with hearty pastries and local-style breakfast and lunch plates.
Ishihara Market: 9894 Kaumualii Hwy., (808) 338-1751. Supermarket and deli along with array of poke and plate lunch specialties. It’s open daily, and till 7 p.m. Sunday (as quickly as nearly all else is closed).
What to do
West Kauai Visitor Center, 9565 Kaumualii Hwy. (808) 338-1332, http://ift.tt/20Ycdnr. Compact cultural history museum along with free 3-hour strolling tours on Mondays (reserve by Friday afternoon). March-October, lei-making at 10 a.m. Fridays (reserve a day ahead) by donation.
Polihale, Kokee and Waimea Canyon state parks are within a 30-minute drive of Waimea; Russian Fort Elizabeth State Historical Park is simply across the river from town. See http://ift.tt/1Sk8zma for much more information.
from Golden Land Travel http://ift.tt/20Ycdns
0 komentar:
Post a Comment