Sleeping Giant Nounou Kauai Ceramic Art Tile
— — a giant who lay down after the feast, and stayed.
Not only on a wall.
“A ridge above the Wailua River on the east shore of Kauai. Viewed from the coast road it reads as a man asleep on his back, head south, feet north. Hawaiian tradition calls him Nounou, a giant the villagers fed with rocks hidden in fish and poi until he lay down for a nap and never woke. Three trails climb him. From the picnic shelter at the chest, when the cloud breaks, Mount Waiʻaleʻale shows itself further inland, the wettest place in the islands. Locals know which window of the morning the silhouette is clearest.
Sleeping Giant Nounou Kauai Ceramic Art Tile, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
Each tile ships in a kraft box, tied with cream ribbon, with a handwritten note from the studio if you'd like to add one.
Three or five different vistas, hung together — a chapter of places you've been, or want to go.
The place, in three passes.
Nounou Mountain rises about 1,241 feet (378 m) along the east shore of Kauai, the ridge that divides coastal Wailua from the inland Wailua Homesteads. The whole formation sits inside the Nounou Forest Reserve, a few miles in from the Pacific. Three marked trails climb it: the East Trail from Haleilio Road in Wailua, the West Trail from Kamalu Road in the Homesteads, and the Kuamoʻo-Nounou Trail, which crosses ʻŌpaekaʻa Stream on a wooden footbridge. They meet near the top at a picnic shelter on the chest. From there the view runs east to the Coconut Coast and west to Mount Waiʻaleʻale.
The English name comes from the ridge's resemblance to a person lying on his back: head south, chest in the middle, feet north. The Hawaiian name is Nounou. In the version told to visitors today, the villagers of Wailua tricked the giant Nounou into eating a meal of fish and poi mixed with rocks. He grew sleepy, lay down across the ridge, and has not yet woken. A friendlier version has him helping the villagers build an imu, the Hawaiian earth oven, and eating too much at the feast that followed. Either way the silhouette is the same, and three trails now cross his body.
Three trails reach the summit ridge of Nounou Mountain, all inside the Nounou Forest Reserve. The East Trail, also called the Sleeping Giant Trail, starts on Haleilio Road in Wailua and runs about 3.5 miles round trip with roughly 950 feet of elevation gain through a shaded forest of ironwood, guava, and silk oak. The West Trail, from Kamalu Road in the Wailua Homesteads, is shorter and steeper. The Kuamoʻo-Nounou Trail, the easiest of the three, starts on Kuamoʻo Road and crosses ʻŌpaekaʻa Stream on a wooden footbridge through a stand of strawberry guava. All three end at a picnic shelter on the chest, where a short scramble continues to the forehead. There is no entrance fee.