"Defend Hanalei," says the bumper sticker on a rusty, surfboard-loaded pickup puttering slowly down the winding, two-lane road in front of my rental car as I approach a bridge into Kauai's green, green Hanalei Valley.
The bridge itself is a political statement aimed at keeping "progress" out of this isolated community on the north shore of the Hawaiian island of Kauai. Locals successfully battled against a new concrete span to replace the Hanalei River's one-lane, steel-truss bridge. At islanders' behest, the state in 2003 replaced the decaying old bridge — built in 1912, the year the Titanic sank — with a close replica.
It slows traffic. It keeps out tour buses and big trucks. It helps keep Hanalei funky.
Over centuries, native Hawaiians farmed taro and other food crops in this fertile valley. Native crops gave way to a boom of rice farming in the 19th century. Today, waterfalls thread thousands of feet down emerald-green hillsides beyond ponds that once again grow taro, now used in traditional dishes plus everything from hummus to smoothies. With every breeze, the large, heart-shaped taro leaves wave like butterfly wings.
Travel across the valley through Hanalei (say "haw-na-LAY") town, then into the "Bali Hai" area of Kauai, where rainbows arch across cockscomb-jagged hills above some of the island's best snorkeling beaches.
South Pacific was filmed here. Actor Pierce Brosnan, a former James Bond, has a home here. Every morning, hikers by the score set out from the Kuhio Highway's end to tackle the challenging Kalalau Trail along the Na Pali cliffs.
The old bridge doesn't keep visitors out, so Hanalei town has its share of touristy boutiques and galleries. But even their setting, such as the rustic Old Hanalei School retail complex (check out the vintage restrooms), beats your average strip mall.
And while cafes may have plenty of visitors from other states, not every Hawaiian town has local color as memorable as Hanalei's 52-year-old island-style bar, Tahiti Nui, or "da Nui" to locals (5-5134 Kuhio Highway; thenui.com). Co-founded by a descendant of Tahitian royalty, this is where George Clooney and Beau Bridges hung out in the 2011 movie The Descendants. Under bamboo rafters, dance to a rocking island band and slurp cocktails bursting with pineapple and passion fruit.
For schooling in a page of unique island history, I join a tour of Hawaii's only remaining rice mill, situated among the taro ponds. Rice was grown here commercially from the 19th century until Hawaii's rice industry collapsed in the 1960s.
The Ho'opulapula Haraguchi Rice Mill is now in the middle of Hanalei National Wildlife Refuge, off-limits to most visitors. The tour is highly personal. Leading it is 35-year-old Lyndsey Haraguchi-Nakayama, whose family is in its sixth generation of farming the valley, which included operating the mill until its closure. Now, through a nonprofit, the family helps preserve the historic mill, which has been rebuilt and restored through many flash floods and two major hurricanes.
"At the ripe old age of 6 I started driving tractors, to help with evacuations," Haraguchi-Nakayama recalls as she stands by a taro pond and tells her family's story. Under the old mill's corrugated metal roof, she shows how scoops of rice moved on a conveyor belt powered at first by a water wheel, later by a hefty diesel engine. Machinery dating to 1830s China includes boulders that turned together to crush and hull the rice.
The tour concludes with a demonstration of taro pounding using a lava-rock stone. There are samples of coconut water and fresh pa'i'ai, or pounded poi — like purplish lumps of dough rolled in freshly shredded coconut. Then comes a catered lunch of sticky rice, lau lau pork (marinated pork wrapped in a steamed taro leaf) and a sweet mochi cake.
To work off the lunch, a kayak paddle up the lazy Hanalei River is just the way to cap a day. Kayak Hanalei, a family-run outfitter just off the main drag as you enter town, launches boats into a little stream that connects with the river. They make it easy and fun, no guide required. Rent a double-seater, sit-on-top kayak for a half-day (the 1 p.m. special) for $48 (5-5070-A Kuhio Highway; kayakhanalei.com).
Then it's back into town to think about dinner. Choices, choices: the open-air deck at Kalypso (5-5156 Kuhio Highway; kalypsokauai.com) for the Paniolo Spicy BBQ burger ($10.95)? Or Chicken in a Barrel BBQ, from which you can look across the road to a double ribbon waterfall tumbling down a distant mountainside? Or back to Tahiti Nui, for Kauai prawns with macadamia honey sauce over steamed bok choy ($25)?
You can't go wrong.