Father Damien’s Churches

After reading through a few guide books, I’d decided that one of the few “must dos” for the weekend would head out to Kalaupapa, home of the infamous leper colony. I knew you had to take a mule ride down to the actual colony area and that was not a possibility for me, but I thought the town was at least accessible. But Noel asked around and discovered there were three ways to get there: small chartered plane, 4 mile hike, or the mules. No driving options. Noel tentatively threw out the idea of the hike, but I’m just not fit enough (and coming off a week and a half where I was fighting a bad cold made things worse). We also couldn’t get a good sense of the trail. It sounded pretty difficult in some areas, so it was a no-go. I was disappointed, but what can you do? Luckily Father Damien’s good works were not centered in Kalaupapa. There are two churches he built on the accessible side of the island, right off the main roads.