[Editor’s Note: Even political essayists require occasional relief, and our Mr. Elias has changed the pace this week by going on holiday.]
HANALEI, Kauai, HI – They call this greenest of all islands, The Garden Island, for good reason. But today, the island of resilience would be just as accurate a tag.
Trouble has found this paradise-like land several times over the last two decades – and each time Kauai emerged in many ways even better than before.
First came the hurricanes, Ewa and Iniki, during the 1980s and ‘90s, with winds raging up to 160 mph, knocking trees and power lines onto buildings and roads, battering homes and stores and destroying legendary hotels like the Coco Palms, where Elvis Presley filmed “Blue Hawaii” during the 1950s, and the ultra-plush Waiohai on the island’s southern shore.
Then the sugar cane plantations, key to Kauai’s economy for more than 150 years, shut down because they couldn’t compete with cheap labor in places like the Caribbean and Africa.
No Need to Surrender
But few on Kauai gave up. About half a mile from the old Waiohai site, a Grand Hyatt hotel arose featuring more luxury, wider beaches and even better views from its rooms. The Coco Palms is still shuttered, but its stately lagoon and coconut grove – once the domain of Hawaiian royalty – again host dozens of weddings yearly.
Just up the road in Kapaa, meanwhile, the luxury Waipouli Resort and Spa now plays some of the role the Coco Palms did in its glamorous heyday.
For every hotel closed by the hurricanes, it seemed as if something at least as good sprang up.
Meanwhile, the ultimate fate of the big sugar cane plantations is not yet fully known. Some of their land now is planted in coffee, with gourmet Kauai grinds available around the world. Coffee is not yet the economic powerhouse that sugar once was, but its growth here is steady and rapid.
Some old sugar cane lands also are now “planted” in houses, with developments slowly springing up on land once reachable only from red dirt cane haul roads.
Elsewhere on old sugar cane lands is the inventive Aakukui Ranch, raising grass-fed, free-range veal calves. So far, their meat is only for consumption in a few local restaurants, like the Hukilau Lanai near Kapaa. The meat is slightly darker than milk-fed veal, but is as tender and tasty – without offending animal rights activists.
Changes to be Appreciated
Now the island must cope with recession. Light traffic on the Kuhio Highway, the main road around Kauai, is one sure sign of the downturn.
Hotel occupancy on all Hawaiian islands was down about 5 percent in July from last year, with more than 14 percent fewer visitors coming to Kauai overall this year than in 2008.
So a few longtime tourist favorites have closed or cut back on their offerings.
The spectacular Bali Hai restaurant, which for 30-odd years served up gourmet meals along with sweeping views of Hanalei Bay and myriad waterfalls cascading down the nearby mountains, has closed indefinitely (but you can enjoy the same views: just carry a picnic lunch into the facility).
The ultra-romantic Duke’s restaurant in the Marriott Kauai resort at Kalapaki Beach cut out its roving ukulele-playing singers, but food and ambience are otherwise unchanged.
Fresh out of foreclosure, the Hilton Kauai Beach Hotel now has lower than usual occupancy, one reason it’s dispensed with the musical lounge performances of singer-songwriter Larry Rivera, known as “Mr. Kauai” for decades after performing with Elvis in “Blue Hawaii.”
But the natural attractions that trademark Kauai all endure. Suddenly, they’re less crowded than usual. Rainfall remains heavy despite global warming, with the island’s central peak still the wettest spot on earth at about 460 inches of rainfall per year. No danger of drought here.
If you like dry, Waimea Canyon – Mark Twain called it “the Grand Canyon of the Pacific” – lies barely four miles from the mountaintop, its steep, colorful cliffs drawing less than 10 percent as much rainfall.
The best lookout points over this vast canyon come along state Highway 550, which eventually climbs to Kokee State Park at about 4,200 feet altitude. There, visitors enjoy vistas over the unspoiled Na Pali Coast and hiking trails that often seem like personal botanical gardens featuring thickets of deep purple princess flowers, meadows covered with large yellow ginger and strawberry guava.
A pair of hikers on one well-marked trail in early September had the entire wood to themselves, encountering no other people on a two-mile walk.
Nothing has changed, either, at the Kilauea Lighthouse and national bird reserve on Kilauea Point, the northernmost spot in the Hawaiian chain. Large red-footed boobies and albatross still roost on black lava rocks across a picturesque cove from the lighthouse and soar above this national historic landmark.
Eight miles west lies the newly-renovated five-star St. Regis Princeville Hotel, its unique down-the-cliff design giving every room and restaurant an unobstructed view of Kauai’s mountains, Hanalei Bay and, off to the west, the Bali Hai rock that became an object of mystique in the classic 1950’s movie “South Pacific.”
The end of the main highway marks the beginning of Na Pali. From the reef-protected Kee Beach there, even the less ambitious can clamber up the first half mile of the ultra-scenic Kalalau trial, carved from cliffs by ancient Hawaiians. That first stretch leads to what some call one of the most beautiful spots on the planet.
Reach this perch and you’ve earned an uncluttered view along Na Pali and back down to the beach. For some, no visit to Kauai is complete without at least one jaunt this far along the trail. Walk the other 11.5 miles for even more splendor.
Bad economic times don’t change these attractions or many more. But recession has spurred some major rate reductions. Asking price for rooms at the Hanalei Bay Resort, where the bottom rack rate was $325 per night a year ago, now is $215 double. Dicker a little and you might beat that. There are similar price reductions all over the island, at all grades of hotels.
Smith’s Tropical Paradise in Wailua still asks $78 for its luau and Polynesian dance show, considered by many the best on the island. But the activity center in the Safeway shopping center two miles north in Kapaa offered the same package for just $16 in mid-September; takers had only to sit through a timeshare presentation.
Rental cars that once brought as much as $500 per week can now be gotten for less than 40 percent of that from some discounters.
Through it all, as singer Rivera says, “What always endures on Kauai is the spirit of aloha.”
Mr. Elias may be contacted at tdelias@aol.com
For more of his columns, visit www.californiafocus.net