Write on, brother

Please see a few photos on my website.

Teri and I had a chance to visit Kauai for a few days. We had the use of a beautiful home in Princeville. This island is much more green, lush and wet than Maui. It is the oldest island in the chain and has carved mountains that are all covered in green with their tops perpetually in the clouds. This island is home to the wettest spot on earth.

It was great to see wetland taro flourishing. There are rivers running all over the island. I have never seen one running river on Maui. A few streams, most don’t even make it to the ocean.

We visited Waimea Canyon, called the Grand Canyon of the Pacific. It is very small compared to the Grand Canyon, but you see the similarities. From the rim of the canyon, you can see the island of Niihau, where only 200 people live and Hawaiian is the first language. Next to that is the tiny island of Lehua. Just an uninhabited dot, but these islands are the north end of the populated part of the chain. Many more islands stretch away to the north.

All the way around the island from Waimea Canyon, is the other end of the Napali Coast. To get there from Princeville we drove through Hanalei, where I went to a Club Med about 30 years ago that no longer exists but it was interesting that the house we stayed in was about 1 mile from the site of that club. Of course we waited until the last minute of the last day to visit this spot. So, it was nothing more than a rush to hike as far as fast as we could to catch some views, and turn around in time to wash the sheets before leaving for the airport. Did I mention that this is one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been? I’ll be back. We also found time to be lazy for most of a day. Well, me lazy. Teri homework.

In addition to enjoying the lush beauty of the island, we also met some great people that are doing similar sustainability work to what South Maui Sustainability is doing. A great introduction to Keone and Andrea from Malama Kauai. We also met with State Senator Gary Hooser and discovered that he does a workshop called Political Advocacy 101. We invited him to come to Maui and do the workshop through South Maui Sustainability and also ask other groups to invite their members as well. We hope we’ll need a large room for that event. Details to follow. We wish him the best in his 2010 race for Lieutenant Governor alongside Neil Abercrombie., who is running for Governor. This is a team that could make a very positive difference for Hawaii.

We had a great trip. Many thanks to our hosts.

Maury King