Introduction to Honokaa, HI Honoka'a

The largest and most characterful of the Hamakua towns is rough-and-tumble HONOKA'A, forty miles north of Hilo where the Belt Road curves west to run across the island to Waimea. Consisting largely of a row of quaint timber-framed stores set on the wooden boardwalks of Mamane Street, it stands a couple of miles back from the ocean and is surrounded by rolling meadows.

Just over two thousand people live in Honoka'a, whose economy depended on a mill belonging to the Hamakua Sugar Company from 1873 until it finally shut down in 1994. Still, this is one of several Big Island communities to have been spruced up and revitalized by federal funding, and its historic downtown district makes it an appealing port of call.

The most conspicuous landmark along Mamane Street is the Art Deco Honoka'a People's Theater, built as a movie theater in 1930 by the Tanimoto family (who were also responsible for the Aloha Theater in Kainaliu). Restored and repainted over the last decade, it is now in use once again for occasional movie performances and musical evenings, and each October hosts the Hamakua Music Festival, featuring Hawaiian bands and singers.

If you're lucky enough to find it open – afternoons are a better bet than mornings, but that's as far as regular hours go – a visit to octagenarian James Rice's Hawaiian Shop, also on Mamane Street, is the most memorable experience Honoka'a has to offer. At first glance it looks like a typical junk shop, but many of the artifacts piled high on all sides are anthropological museum pieces. The place heaves with Buddhas, bottles, Aladdin's lamps, stuffed hog's heads, carved-lava Hawaiian deities and swathed mummies, but most importantly with idols, fertility symbols and masks from Papua New Guinea. The town's handful of other antique and junk stores, a couple of hundred yards up the road to Hilo, pall by comparison.

A steep road drops straight down towards the sea from the center of Honoka'a. As yet, despite the closure of the sugar mill that blocks the way, you can't get right to the ocean. However, the Macadamia Nut Factory (daily 9am–6pm; free; tel 775-7201), very near the bottom, is, for no very good reason, a stop on many bus tours of the Big Island. It basically consists of a gift shop selling cookies, coffees and the oleaginous nuts themselves. A window runs along the interior wall, enabling you to see into the factory and affording an insight into the zany world of mac-nut preparation.

Information by Rough Guides

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