King Kamehameha statue in Kapaau
Hawaiians believe that the birth of Paiea Kamehameha fulfilled their traditional prophecy of a birth of a male who would become the greatest of all chiefs in Hawaii. It is believed that the night he was born Hailey's comet may have appeared. The prophecy of the kahunas said that the child would vanquish the other chiefs and unite the islands. Kamehameha's uncle ordered him killed.... but his parents had anticipated this and instead he was taken away and raised in seclusion by foster parents. When he was 5 years old his uncle relented and brought the boy to the village where he was trained as a chief and learned court diplomacy and war.
When he grew up, Kamehameha, through a series of battles and by ruthlessly killing off relatives who opposed him became the ruler of the united Hawaii.
The statue of King Kamehameha was commissioned to Thomas Gould, an American living in Italy. He desiged the statue and sent the sculpture to Paris to be bronzed. When completed it was put on a ship to Hawaii but sank in the Falklands. A second statue was cast from the original mold.. This statue stands in Honolulu.
Within weeks after the second statue arrived in Hawaii the original arrived. It had been salvaged and locate in a junk yard in Port Stanley in the Falkland Islands. The captain who found it, sold it to King Kalakaua. Remembering the prophecy of the old kahuna, the original statue was sent to the town of Kapaau, near Kamehameha's birth place on the Big Island.
We really enjoyed seeing the statue. While we were there a light rain began to fall and we were able to get a picture of the statue with a rainbow.... cool. Linda was particularly excited as she had read about it for years.
END OF THE ROAD: HIGHWAY 270
This was one of our favorite parts of the day.
We drove up the 270 and to our shock it did actually dead end. It just stopped with signs .... We were cracking up......It was a jungle and tropical area across the valley.... We got out and took pictures of the beautiful valley it deadended at. To build the road through would have been very challenging...We could see a beach far, far below. Some people walked up the trail and we asked them if they had made it all the way to the beach... they had not because they had on flip flops and the trail was steep and challenging.
There was the weirdest thing.
It was almost dark..... Some of our pictures showed black but luckily my Photo shop in my laptop was able to save them.... I posted them below with the heading: End of highway 270: It was really a kick and we are glad we drove there. On our way out we saw trees with oranges.... I love citrus trees and got a quick shot..
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The restaurant was created in 1911 during sugar cane era. It was a hotel and later a brothel, then a residence and store. When the sugar cane plantations closed over 20 years ago, Hawi and Kapaau practically became ghost towns. Children had to leave their families to find work elsewhere. The Bamboo restaurant opened in November, 1993. Hawi's only other business was an appliance store. The other buildings were empty. Slowly the towns picked up business' and things were repaired and rebuilt. The local farmers and fisherman supply many of the fruits, vegetable, and fish served at the restaurant. Bamboo has a saying "Everyone should leave the building smiling"
Dinner was amazing! Linda had kalua pork quesadilla. It was smoked pork and jalapeno cheese with tropical salsa and sour cream in a neat pattern on the outside. I had macadamia nut caesar salad: It was wonderful and unusual. David had seafood alfredo special of the night. It had garlic and herbs in a bowl of Fettucini with cream sauce. I was not at the table when it was served and was only able to photograph Linda and my food. I did get pictures of the restaurant.
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