Kualoa Ranch

Today was an early morning start, 7am. Really it was all that early becuase we were up and at'em earlier than that. It's hard to sleep in a room full of strangers, and it almost seems like it takes longer for time to pass here. I kept waking up every hour, as I have been since I got here. I finally figured out the freezing problem though. My bed is right next to th AC, and every other night we've staid here I ended up freezing to death over night and into the morning. The hostel only gives out sheets. No blankets. I finally just turned the AC to lo fan instead of cooling and I didn't freeze at night. It was a simple solution, but one that took me two nights to figure out. To be fair the AC had always just been on and I didn't touch it, but this night, I had to turn it on. 

We arrived at the hotel where we were being picked up which is right across the street from where we're staying and waited for the bus to show up. The bus ride took about 45-50 minutes to get out to Kualoa Ranch but it was a beautiful journey. On the way we had to fill out a paper letting them know what we wanted to do. We had signed up for the full day experience which entitled us to four 1 hour tours. There was a little disconnect between the website and the actually ranch on what we could actually go on. One of the tours counted as two tours, but it was a different tour than the one listed on the website. It wasn't too muchof a downfall as the tour that counted as two was on the beach. We ended up going with the Garden and Fishpond, Ocean Voyage, Movie Sites and Ranch, and finally the Jungle Excersion. The ranch personnel were helpful and friendly. They took us though a quick orientation, and the gave us our schedule and showed us where wee were suppose to be at what time. It was such a breathe of fresh air becuase we knew where we were going, and there was no need to go into panic mood. 

The Garden and Fishpond tour was led by Godfrey. We toured the gardens full of a range of fruit including avocados, bananas, and star fruit. We got to have a taste of the star fruit and gauva. Next we boarded a small boat to ride around on the fishpond. Godfrey told us how the fishpond was made and pointed out some fish. On our way back, he points out some movie sites including 50 first dates, Fantasy Island, and Lost. Back on land, we crushed macademian nuts with rocks and then loaded back onto the bus to go back for our next tour. 

Kai (I think that was his name) led the Ocean Voyage, which took us back across the fishpond and onto the Secret Island. We had to wait for the boat to get back on shore becuase we were early, so we got to enjoy the view from the beach was nice. We all boarded on the catamaran and headed out to sea. A little girl lost her hat and cried but then it was just holding of for dear life as the boat rode the waves out about a mile into the Bay. I got some good shots of Chinamen's Hat. We went passed a reef where there are a lot of turtles, but I wasn't able to see any. Dad saw one pop his head out. 

Lunch was then served, buffet style. I, of course, had forgotten to ask in advance about a vegetarian.unch so I had to make do with the salad, rice and upside down pinapple cake. I wasn't all that hungry anyways so it worked out. Our next tour was the one I was most looking forward to the Movie Site and Ranch tour. This tour was led by Jordan (or Steve if you didn't like the tour). So many movies have been filmed in the Kualoa Valley! We stopped by the Jurassic Park site where Dr. Grant and the two kids have to hid behind a dead tree to escape the fleeing dinosaurs. We saw Godzilla's footprint and Hurley's golf course. We walked through an old World War II bunker which started out as a tribute to the movies and ended in a history lesson. 

Our final tour of the day was the Jungle Expedition which was led by Keni who drove a military transport. Hold onto your hats ladies and gentlemen, this is going to be a bumpy ride. It was the kind of ire that you had to hold I with all your strength in order to stay seated. We saw some movie sets I the process of being taken down, saw beautiful views of the bay, and learned a lot about the legends and history surrounding Kualoa Valley. There was suppose to be a hike at the end of the drive but the rain earlier that day caused someone to slip so that portion was cancelled. I was thankful for that becuase I could hardly walk at this point. I had gotten blisters on my toes, the same two toes on each foot which had slowly been developing over the few days I've been here. We made our last stop at about 600 feet above the bay and the headed back to the ranch and the shuttle back home. We stopped by the gift shop on the way out. They didn't have any lapel pins, but they did have a selection of photos they had been taking of us throughout the day. We ended up taking the one before the Movie tour which was the best one and then loaded the shuttle for Waikiki. 

There was a spot of traffic, so we didn't get back to the hotel until about 5pm. We were hungry by this time but needed to unload a few things at the hostel first. Unfortuntely, the locker wasn't working and we lost three quarters trying to make it work. We finally just put stuff on or under our bunks and headed out to find food. The first two restaurants were quite expensive so we ended up eating at Burger King before headed out to the beach. My toes needed a nice long soak in the ocean. The only problem with the soak is that once you get out of the ocean you're covered in sand. I could only sit on there beach for a short time before I had to get up. We made our way back to the hostel and crashed, another day complete.