Friday 28 March 2014

Kualoa Ranch

Yesterday (Thursday) Martin and I went to a place called the Kualoa Ranch, which is a large ranch that does experience tours. We purchased a whole day deluxe adventure, which included four 1-hour tours and a lunch buffet. It costs around 180$ for the whole day tour, and two of the tours are an ATV ride and a horseback ride, which is why we chose it! This ranch is used for filming movies and TV shows all the time, including Lost, Jurassic Park (they're actually starting the filming of the latest sequel there NEXT WEEK, we *think* we even got a glimpse of the set being built!), 50 First Dates and a ton of other large and not so large movies. 
So the day off, we got picked up from a hotel across the street (10$ extra gets you a bus ride to and from) at 7.30AM. The Ranch is located on the North-East side of Oahu, and the ride took around an hour.
Well there we signed up for the tours we wanted, the package we bought was the ATV and horseback ride, plus two of their other 1-hour tours, or one 2-hour boat and beach experience. We chose the Movie Sites tour and Jungle Experience.




Beautiful surroundings.
First up was the Movie Sites tour!
We got the entire bus to ourselves, which meant we could move around and take pictures on either side when the bus was moving, pretty great!
 A plateau with a bunker from the war with movie and war memorabilia inside, amazing views!
The famous Jurassic Park sign and the dead tree they hide behind in the movie, conveniently blocked by both of us of course.

Hurley's golf field from Lost. 
The mountains looming over us all around. 
Godzilla footprint! Apparently these were originally 8 feet deep (almost 3 meters!) but they had to fill them in because the cattle the ranch keeps kept falling in and injuring themselves.
On the way back to the ranch.
Next up was the Jungle Experience tour, a tour inside a open truck up the hills of the mountain, through the thick jungle vegetation!


Quite a bumpy ride!
Not the easiest to tell, but this was ponds with Taro growing in them, Taro is Hawaii's main protein, like Norway's potato. Its a tough root that grows in water like rice does, so this was a cascading system of ponds with natural spring water running through it.


The view from the top!
After the two first rides, it was time for the included buffet style lunch, which consisted of rice, ribs and pork. Very very tasty! And filling. After lunch it was time for the ATV ride, which made me nervous because Ive never ridden one, much less driven one on my own! But it was simple enough and I was grinning like silly before we even got out of the test course! The tour route was pretty similar to the route from the movie sites tour, but without the guiding since we couldn't hear anything, and more terrain. No pictures allowed while driving, so this one is all I have from that one!
 After the ATV ride, time for horseback riding! This was a slow and leisurely ride, but it was very nice and the hour went surprisingly fast! Talking to the guides about the nature and riding was fun, and we saw a tree that was over 800 years old!  

 Apparently this one was 800 years old!  
My horse was named Hollywood and used to be a guide horse, he was really nice and offered no trouble!


After we finished all our tours, we had about 40 minutes before our bus back to Waikiki was leaving, so we decided to eat at the Ranch. They had burgers made from their own beef, more local and homegrown you couldn't get! And it was very big, 8oz burgers are huge!
All in all, a great adventure!

Wednesday 26 March 2014

Diamond Head Hike, and a new toy

This weekend Martin arrived from Norway, and we're going to have a lot of fun while he's here! Then in two weeks my mother and aunt arrives, more fun! I decided, after some number crunching, that I was able to squeeze out the money for a GoPro, and Ive been testing it all weekend! Not only is the camera a lot of fun to use, but its useful to have one that can go in the water, for later adventures like more snorkeling! 
Some pictures
 Relaxing on the beach!

 Nice and quiet on a Monday morning
Waterproof is nice!!
After a couple of days of doing random stuff like going to BestBuy (to get the GoPro) and Walmart (food shopping the american way!), and getting Martin new Vans, we decided today we were doing the Diamond Head hike. People had told me that this was a beginners hike, simple and about an hour. All evidence seemed to point that way indeed, until we hit the stairs. I didnt get any pictures of the stairs themselves, but I got one from the top of the first ones, where I had to stop to take a breather and water break because I am not made for stairs at all. 
On the bus there. The bus stops right below the crater ''entrance'' and you walk up a hill, through a tunnel and into the crater in order to start the hike. There's an $1 entry fee if you walk, $5 for a car.
 On the walk up to the tunnel, a preview of the view from the top. 

 The tunnel.
 The hike itself wasnt so bad, there's a trail all the way and its solid stone, but a bit uneven. We walked pretty fast and it wasnt too steep for most of the hike.
 Midway you reach a vantage point where you can take pictures of the crater, probably for the ones that don't want to go all the way up. 
 Then the fun started. There's two sets of stairs, one with 99 steps and one with 75, and another spiral staircase inside the bunkerlike area. Its possible to avoid the two last sets by going to the left before the second staircase, but we didn't know that and took them all. I was exhausted by the end! This picture is of the first staircase, at the end, and it ends in a tunnel with very low light! Kind of creepy haha!
 But oh so worth it! The view of the crater from the top.
 Sweaty and gross from walking up a lot of stairs.
 View of Honolulu from the top.
 Taking all the selfies






 The tunnel on our way back down.. Going in here I could not see a thing. The air in there is really bad too, especially going up as I was completely out of breath from the stairs to begin with.
 Well down we rewarded ourselves with some shave ice from the truck in the parking area!
A little friend.

Tuesday 25 March 2014

St.Patrick's day

I went to the St.Patrick's day parade on the 17th, hoping to spot some green leprechauns. No leprechauns, but plenty of green!