Flume it! or "It's a Small World After all"-Day 12

Today's activity was very relaxing and fun.  The Big Island has its own "Small World" but it is called the Kohala Ditch System. The ditch is the irrigation system that sugar plantations in the area used to direct water from the valleys to the plains where their crops were planted.  The system is 22.5 miles long with 57 tunnels, 19 flumes, and 6 miles of open ditches.

In 1903, 600 Japanese men were brought over to work on the system (they made between $0.75 up to $1.50 per day). 18 months later and with the loss of 17 lives, the ditch was ready.  The guy who planned the ditch is the same guy who was also responsible for the Hetch-Hetchety project, M.M. O'Shaughnessy.

We begin by checking in (at the same place for the ATV rides) and then climb into another pinzgauer for an off-road excursion up to the launch site in the Kohala Mountains. We get out of the truck and take a short hike over a 150 ft flume to our launching site.

We boarded the kayaks and cruised for 2 1/2 miles through the Hawaiian rainforest, 10 earth tunnels (which have low ceilings and are very dark), and water flumes.



A flume



A ditch

A chinese banyan tree

Tim is the captain of our vessel, I'm in the middle (think Pocahontas), and 1 of our guides is in the back of our kayak.



Launching point.  The water is pretty cold and our guide was standing in it for a while helping everyone into their kayaks.  We had 4 kayaks in our group.  The 2nd guide rode in the 4th kayak.

The 1st of our 10 tunnels. The captain gets to wear a headlight that has about 3 lumens worth of light!



Light at the end of the tunnel.

Our guide was getting a little bit bored so he started bouncing on the end of the kayak to make these big waves which would get the people behind us wet.  One time, he almost hit his head on the ceiling of the tunnel.

Basically, you just float down this ditch for about 1 1/2 hours with a couple of stops to see a waterfall. Actually, we were at the top of the waterfall that Tim and I were at when we went on the ATVs (the one with the big pool).

Not only did the captain have a headlight, he also had a paddle to make sure we didn't run into the ditch walls.  This is Tim demonstrating his technique. (Notice how wet he is?  You do get wet on this activity-though I didn't get as wet until our guides decided to hit their ATV counterparts with a deluge of water as they drove by!)

I dont' know why I keep doing this; it just doesn't look good.

At the top of the waterfall, heading to our next tunnel.  For every 1000 ft we traveled, we would go down only a foot.

The disembarking site where snacks and drinks and our ride home waited for us.





They took us down in ATVs which was to add to the adventure.

This was a fun relaxing activity. Well...at least for me.

On the way home, we stopped at a ancient temple site.  This is where King Kamehameha 1 finally achieved total unification of the islands by killing his rival.  The general public isn't allowed in the temple but religious practicing Hawaiians use it for special gatherings. On this site, there are actually 4 temples (one, dedicated to sharks sunk in the sea years ago) and a royal compound. 

Royal compound area

Somewhere near here is the sunken shark temple

Some museum has the original cape of the King and they have determined that he was probably around 7 ft. tall.  They believe that most early Hawaiians ranged from 7 - 8ft. in length.

This proves that Tim is a manly man. Kane (pronounced caw-nay) means man in Hawaiian.

All day the wind has been blowing something fierce.  The ocean looked like ice because of all the white caps.