Our day started early as we headed out for a Polynesian Adventure tour. We left our bags at the hotel front desk, checked out, and got on the tour bus at 8am. Our tour guide, Nappy, quickly introduced himself and started entertaining us with jokes as soon as we got on board.
Nappy (and Tabitha) graciously agreed to say hello to our viewers:
We made several stops throughout the day, which was fantastic because it allowed us to see many places around Oahu. Our first stop took us to the beautiful Hanauma Bay, which is a marine life preservation district. We saw many people snorkeling in the bay, and we could understand why - the water was unbelievably clear. We were told that the bay is a great place to see turtles, although we didn't see any while we were there.
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| A view of the bay from the lookout point above the beach. Isn't it magnificent? |
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| You can see how crystal clear the water really was! |
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| On the other side of the bay was a large green mountain. |
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| Erin and James posed for a picture on top of the Hanauma Bay lookout. |
Our next stop was the Halona Blow Hole. Supposedly, when the tide is high and the wind is blowing, the waves crash into the rocks and shoot water up in the air like a geyser. When we were there, we definitely saw the water crashing into the rocks, but we didn't observe any geyser-like activity. Even without an active blow hole, the scenery was still amazing.
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| Tabitha perched herself in front of the Halona Cove. |
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| This is where the geyser-like action is supposed to take place. |
Our next stop was Nu'uanu Pali, which is a section of the windward cliff of the nearby Koolau mountain range. Once again, the views were amazing.
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| While driving to Nu'uanu Pali, we also passed Waimanalo Beach, which was stunning as well. |
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| A view of Pali (which means cliff) from one of the lower trails. |
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| On top of the lookout, there were lots of chicken running around - most of them had a lot of color, just like this one. |
It wasn't long before we arrived at the Byodo-In Temple located at the Valley of the Temples Memorial Park. We had flashbacks to our time in Japan, as we noticed the temple resembled several we saw while touring through Japan. The Byodo-In Temple was created to commemorate the first Japanese immigrants to Hawaii. And, just like the temples in Japan, there is a large buddha inside, as well as a bell house right outside.
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| We felt right at home as we arrived at the Byodo-In Temple. |
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| Another giant Buddha to worship. This one, however, was lacking offerings, which was something we saw at many Buddhist temples in Thailand, China, and Japan. |
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| The koi fish in the nearby pond were stunning to look at. |
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| Yup, you guessed it, we used our tripod and timer to take another picture of ourselves! |
We made a stop for lunch at Kualoa Ranch, which is one of the major sites for television filming on the island (
Lost, 50 First Dates, Jurassic Park, and currently
Hawaii 5-0). The ranch was extremely large (over 4,000 acres), so we didn't see anything that looked obviously familiar. It was fun to wander around the filming location and try to locate things from television shows.
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| A view of Mokoli'i island (also known as Chinaman's hat) from the ranch. |
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| James standing in front of one of the dramatic mountain backdrops. |
After lunch, we stopped at the nearby macadamia nut and coffee farm in Kahaluu. It was great to see how the macadamia nuts are grown and shelled, but it was even better tasting the free samples of different nuts and Kona coffees.
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| James attempts to crack open the shell of a macadamia nut. He wasn't successful until he squished it with his foot. |
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| Erin and Tabitha standing in front of some of the art carved out of the soft wood trees at the farm. |
We also made a stop along the north shore of Hawaii at Sunset Beach. Erin was especially excited to visit the north shore because it is the home of some of the biggest waves in Hawaii. Many surfing competitions are held there, and when we were there, the waves were about 10-15 feet. There were several signs warning people about the dangers involved. Our tour guide even told us that we shouldn't leave the sidewalk because the tide changes can make the water come up much further beyond the shoreline than you might expect.
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| Tabitha tries to catch a wave at Sunset Beach. |
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| We wonder how that picture was decided upon for this sign. |
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| The waves may not look all that big in this photo, but they were! |
A trip to Hawaii wouldn't be complete without visiting the Dole Plantation. Our last stop took us to the Dole Plantation where various types of pineapples are grown. The grounds house a beautiful garden where many things (other than pineapple) are grown. They also have a very large pineapple maze that you can wander through.
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| The entrance to the Dole Plantation was inviting and tropical - just as you might imagine a pineapple farm would be! |
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| While we saw many Eucalyptus trees in Australia, we didn't see any quite like this one at the Dole Plantation. |
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| There is nothing quite like ice cream made from fresh pineapples (or so we were led to believe). |
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| At the plantation, there are many different types of pineapples grown - this is just a small sample of what they look like up close. |
As our last day in paradise began to wind down, we realized that our journey was almost over. We returned to the hotel, said goodbye to Nappy, and gathered our belongings as we prepared to go home.
