My friend Duane Kanuha invited Roberta Chu, President of the Kohala Center, Matt Hamabata, its Executive Director, and myself to take an air and ground tour of Surety Corporation lands in Kohala.

I, too, am on the board of the Kohala Center, and we may be working closely with Surety Corporation on stewardship issues.

(left to right: Bill Shontell, Sophia Schweitzer, Roberta Chu and Matt Hamabata.)

The north boundary of the property — the Mahukona pier, where Duane folks are doing a residential development:

Looking down the coast from the southern boundary toward Pololu Valley at the end of the road:

Kohala Ditch is a 22.5 mile irrigation system built by 600 laborers, almost all Japanese, in 1905 and 1906. It has been an important irrigation system for farmers ever since.

The dam that starts the Kohala Ditch is further up this valley:

We were instructed to get out and walk in front of the chopper since there was not enough room to walk around the tail on this postage stamp-sized landing zone:

The origin of the Kohala Ditch. The chopper had to stand back. The pilot did not want to cause any rocks to fall off the cliffs:

We flew in through this gap, and we had to fly back out through it:

Getting ready to do the ground tour:

Duane folks want to fence off and restore this area to its original state. He reminded me that many years ago we did a mountain bike ride through the property. I rode most of the way with my friend John Cross:

This house was built in the 1920’s and is still very functional. The only thing missing was the Bull Durham bag that used to filter water from the faucet.

Now a house costs so much our kids cannot afford to build one.

 

My tutu lady’s house down Maku’u looked like this, with lauhala mats on the floor: