Kualoa Sugar Mill Beach - Beaches On Oahu Kaneohe, Hawaii

You'll find Kualoa Sugar Mill Beach as you're driving north on Kamehameha Hwy, past the Kualoa Regional Park and Campground and across the street from Kualoa Ranch and the remains of a destroyed sugar mill.

This thin, but wide, stretch of beach is commonly just called Sugar Mill Beach. There are some dry sandy parts along here but many of the open sand bits are often covered in water. The beach portions here just aren't very large. On top of that the beach is right along the road. We're talking about opening your door and rolling into water close which is both dangerous and unappealing.

While this isn't really a destination beach in terms of swimming and building sand castles, it certainly does have some lovely views of Chinaman's Hat - The Giant Lizard which can actually (though not recommended for most) be accessed via the Chinaman's Hat Trail (Mokolii Island). Of course, you'll find the same views with far better (and safer) beach areas at Kualoa Regional Park and Campground just down the road.

The old sugar mill also makes for some neat views and photographs, if you're into that sort of thing. During the 1800s, this was just one of several fully operational sugar mills during the heyday of agricultural development in Hawaii. Sugar in Hawaii was a big deal back then and this mill was part of the old Kualoa Plantation Sugar Mill, owned by Charles Hastings Judd and Samuel Wilder.

In 1866, Wilder's 9 year old son Willy was playing at this mill when he slipped and fell into a vat of boiling syrup. After a couple of agonizing days, Willy died from his severe burns. His mother who was in terrible sorrow, moved away shortly thereafter. By 1867 they decided to close the mill and the last crops were processed here in the summer of 1868.