We spent most of today at Kualoa Ranch which is a cattle station about a 40 minute drive from Honolulu. We went up into the mountains where it was drizzly and overcast. The scenery is spectacular and photos don’t do it justice. The day stayed mostly overcast which meant the greenery wasn’t as vivid as it could be.
We were lucky our quad bike tour started at 8.30am because this was the driest part of the day. There were only 4 of us in the group with a guide. We spent 2 hours riding along paths in the valley and stopping at times for photos and information. Our first stop was at a WW2 bunker that had been built after the attack on Pearl Harbour. The government took some of the ranch land for military purposes as it provided an excellent line of site for further attacks coming across the ocean. But, it was never used and the guns were only fired once, to see if they worked. The soldiers had left behind a lot of items which are now displayed in the bunker.
Once we got back from riding the quad bikes, we had 30mins before our next tour. This was an ‘Ocean Voyage’. We were taken by bus to another location across the road. Here we got on a double hulled canoe for a quick ride across the ‘ancient pond’. This pond was created by the native Hawaiians for the purpose of feeding people. The same philosophy remains today and it is used for fishing and growing plants for food. The canoe took us to the Secret Island where they do beach activities and water sports. Here we boarded another boat which took us out to the ocean. The day had become quite windy so it was choppy on board. There are sea turtles living here and the captain hoped to show us some babies but because the sun wasn’t out, they weren’t coming to the surface. Sea turtles can hold their breath for 5hrs so they don’t need to come up often.
Our last tour was a movie sites tour. There have been a lot of movies and tv shows filmed at Kualoa. The most well known are Jurassic Park and Jurassic World. Our quad bike guide got us to recreate a scene involving a dinosaur puppet which is hilarious. Our guide for the movie tour played the various scenes from the movies that were filmed at each location so we could see the exact spot. We also visited an area where buildings had been erected for different movies/shows. Sometimes there are still there because the film crew may want to use it again or the ranch has decided they want to keep it and therefore maintain it. Most of the buildings are made of plywood and foam although they look like bricks or concrete. For one movie, the crew wanted to film explosions with real explosives. For safety reasons, the ranch tours couldn’t go ahead. The film company had to pay for every seat on every tour for the duration of the shoot. It was $70k per day for 8 mths.
Once back in Honolulu, we caught the bus into Waikiki. There was a free concert on the beachfront with 2 people playing ukuleles and one playing double bass. They also had a man dancing hula dances and playing traditional instruments such as split bamboo sticks.it was good to see some more of the traditions.
After dinner we walked back to the hotel along the waterfront. The wind seemed to have eased a little and there was no rain in Honolulu.