[photos|travel] The Russian fort on Kauai and an abandoned sugar mill

After leaving the Steampunk Dream House [ jlake.com | LiveJournal ] behind, the_child and I hove to in the town of Waimea. As you enter from the east, you pass the site of Russian Fort Elizabeth. I had no idea there was ever a Russian presence in Hawaii, but apparently the Russian-American Company had three sites to protect resupply ports for their American fleet and possessions.

The site is a lot more interesting to read about than to look at. No preservation work has been done, and the walls of the fort are in perilous shape. Still, we wandered around poking at construction equipment, graffiti, and, yes, chickens.




Us wandering




The walls of the old fort


Parked construction equipment — note the Chinese character on the lower side panel


Graffito in the park men's room


Chickens not too proud to check out whether or not I might be a food supply

After that, we drove through Waimea itself, our goal to reach the canyon. We got distracted by yet another abandoned sugar mill on the other side of town, just past the Chinese cemetery.















There's something haunting and poetic about the abandoned sugar mills.

Next up, driving into Waimea Canyon.

And as usual, more at the Flickr set.

Photos © 2011, Joseph E. Lake, Jr. and B. Lake.



This work by Joseph E. Lake, Jr. and B. Lake is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.