• Australian Navy visit • Kalalau problems Australian Navy visit The HMAS Warramunga, a frigate, is in port at Nawiliwili for a short visit during exercises with U.S. Navy personnel based at the Pacific Missile Range Facility. Members of the
• Australian Navy visit
• Kalalau problems
Australian Navy visit
The HMAS Warramunga, a frigate, is in port at Nawiliwili for a short visit during exercises with U.S. Navy personnel based at the Pacific Missile Range Facility.
Members of the Royal Australian Navy Band are playing at Kukui Grove Center today, and should provide an interesting concert with some Australian tunes surely in their repertoire.
Kaua‘i’s links to Australia go beyond the use of local locations for the filming of the Australian novel “The Thorn Birds” some 20 plus years ago.
More recently, Australian ownership of the Princeville Resort in the late 1980s brought the Island ties to the Australian-based Mirage Resorts company.
There are a number of Australian residents living on Kaua‘i. The tropical climate of Queensland in Australia is similar to Kaua‘i, and the transition is easy for those from Cairns, the Gold Coast and other Australian districts.
While we usually look east to the Mainland for news and cultural ties, the South Pacific, including Australia and New Zealand, also shares the same ocean and many cultural and economic ties.
This rare visit of an Australian naval vessel is a reminder of our ties to the south.
Kalalau problems
A complaint has been filed with the state Attorney General’s office regarding alleged misconduct by workers from the state Department of Land and Natural Resources while they were in isolated Kalalau Valley.
The allegations involve the bringing in of alcoholic beverages, and providing the beverages to an under-age drinker.
The complaints come as the DLNR is attempting to clean out the valley of illegal campers and the debris they left behind. Photographs of the debris clearly show that such campers need to be removed to protect the valley, which was once home to hundreds of Native Hawaiians, and a place where archaeological digs might be carried out in the future. The debris and illegal camping could damage such sites, as well as damaging the environment of the valley.
However, if state workers are violating the laws they are sent in to enforce – which include a prohibition on alcoholic beverages – such actions will undercut the work they are sent in to do.
An investigation of these allegations needs to be made, and if such a situation does exist the state needs to crack down at Kalalau.
