Tubing through the irrigation ditches and tunnels of an old sugar plantation is a fun and informative way to experience Kauai’s hidden upcountry scenery.
It’s not a thrill ride. More of a lazy river. “Watch out for the class 3 ripples,” guide Randal warns with a wry grin.
19th Century ingenuity, expertise and hard work is on display. Manual labor and pickaxes carved canals to divert fresh water from the wettest place on earth onto sugar cane fields that had to be alternately flooded and dried.
Then there is the history/economics lesson of the rise and fall of the Hawaiian sugar industry. The rise started with the Civil War and the North’s boycott of the South. Hawaiians filled the gap for the Confederacy and the industry grew for about a century.
Until statehood in 1959. This brought the kind of workers’ rights that ultimately made growing sugar in Hawaii unprofitable in a global economy. The last mill closed around 2000.
Americans continue to consume sugar, of course. So much so that it feeds our obesity problem. But it is raised in low-cost countries, like Nikes and Aloha shirts. Or derived from corn grown and subsidized in the Midwest U.S. So Hawaii, once a major producer of sugar and pineapples, is more and more dependent on tourism.
By the way, similar dynamics help make Norwegian Cruise Line’s Pride of America costly compared with other cruise ships not registered in the United States and not subject to Hawaii’s high prices.
Today, the former ranch hosting the canal tubing is owned by Steve Case, the America Online founder whose economic timing is impeccable in getting into and out of AOL, once a juggernaut and now mostly a tech hasbeen from the dial-up era, and buying the Kauai ranch land for $75 an acre. Case, who grew up in Hawaii and is a descendant of missionaries who brought Christianity to the islands in the 1800s, decided to invest some of his tech fortune in his home state as a way to preserve land from development.
You can get a bird’s-eye view of the terrain on Kauai Backcountry’s zip-line adventure. Our first zip experience was less scary and revealing than anticipated. It took a bit of nerve to step off the first platform and glide above a deep ravine, but once we experienced the security of the system subsequent runs were just plain rather effortless fun. This particular course zig-zags over the same ravine several times until we arrive at stream level for lunch and an optional dip in a waterhole.
We would have preferred a course that covered more ground, but we can seek that on future zip-line experiences. This one made zipping in, say, a Costa Rica rainforest canopy even more attractive.
In addition to Kauai Backcountry’s tubing and ziplining adventures, there are some happy cows grazing about as well as a few crops.
Harnessed and ready to zip.
Dustin, Randal and Aston presented the tours and a lessons with great humor. So we laughed, learned, bumped, splashed and zipped our way through beautiful Kauai in a pleasant “infotainment” balance.
Definitely worthwhile — if not highly stimulating — adventures.