Captain Cook Loop
Distance: 28.81 km
Elevation Gain: 480 m
Elevation Loss: 480 m
Difficulty:
337 (Easy)
FIETS Index: 0.96 FIETS
Avg Grade: 5.51 %
Max cat climb: 2
Min elevation: 32 m
Max elevation: 470 m
Ride Category:
Hilly
Captain Cook, in South Kona on the Island of Hawaii, USA, lies in the Kona coffee belt, and the town is named after the Captain Cook Coffee Company, which housed the town’s post office in the early 1900s. Coffee came to Kona in 1828. After the world price crash of 1899 the owners of the coffee land leased small plots to their workers, mostly from Japan, as family farms, and about 800 farms still work these slopes.
The loop heads south on Route 11 and drops past St Benedict’s, the Painted Church, where the Belgian missionary Father John Velghe covered the walls and ceiling with biblical scenes. It reaches the sea at Pu‘uhonua o Honaunau, a place of refuge where Hawaiians who had broken a kapu could be absolved and leave free. It then follows the shore north to Hikiau Heiau on Kealakekua Bay, where Cook’s ships arrived on 17 January 1779, during the peaceful Makahiki season. From there the loop makes the long climb back up to town.
