Kaena Point Trail

With this post comes the end of Kathryn's visit with us.  It was a whirlwind, action-packed two weeks and we had a lot of fun with her.  Typical of her "go-go-go" spirit, we were doing activities up until she left (we literally came home from this hike, showered, ate, and left for the airport).

The Kaena Point Trail is well-known on Oahu as you can get there from two directions, the west side through Wainae or through the North Shore.  As you guessed, it is the point joining the north and west sides of the island.  We choose to go through the north shore access, as it has better views and is a little more established and safer than the west side.

When arriving for the hike, the road dead ends to a gate and we just parked alongside the road.  You are able to drive past the gate if you get a special permit and have a 4-wheel drive vehicle (Kat and I thought this would be a lot of fun on an ATV).  Once past the gate, you can walk the "road" for the vehicles or bear off and hike along the shoreline.  There wasn't much of an established path, but as long as the mountains stayed to our left and the water to our right, we figured we couldn't get lost.  The route was about 3 miles each way, and even with our route by the water, we moved along at a pretty good pace.  The waves were pretty big that day (30-35 feet) so it was pretty awesome to walk along the shoreline and see the power of the ocean.

I was glad we did this hike during the winter, because there is absolutely no shade.  No trees along the trails, nothing.  Once we got to the end of the trail, you reach a fenced-in nature preserve.  It was kind of interesting entering, there was a big heavy door to go through to enter.  It seemed a bit out of place to me as there wasn't anything built up around there to fence in or out, but I digress...

Once we entered the nature preserve, there is maybe another quarter or half mile of walking to the point.  Along the way, we passed plenty of Albatross birds that are protected here and very animated.  We caught a couple of males in a fight for a female, and then we cracked up when she flew off and left them to their dance.

When we got to the actual point, we were holding our breath.  One of the biggest things this trail is known for is the congregation of monk seals that meet up on the point.  Monk seals are seen more on Kawai, so they are a treat on Oahu.  We were worried that with the surf so big, they wouldn't find their way safely in, but we worried for nothing.  We found two big, lazy, sleeping seals laying out on the rocks in the sun.  The few people there were respectful and kept their distance, letting them sleep undisturbed (it took everything in me to not go stretch out next to them, haha!).

After watching the seals for a bit, we saw the time and decided to head on back to the car.  We took the vehicle road on the way back so it would be a little more direct and faster, since someone had to catch a flight.  It was a fun end to Kathryn's visit, but we were sad to see her go.  I'll be looking forward to her next visit for sure!

We're heading to Maui this weekend for our first off-island excursion, so be on the lookout for some tales from that trip soon.  Aloha!

North Shore Horseback Riding

For any of you that knew me growing up, you know how big of a horse nut I was.  I started horseback riding with one of my oldest, best friends Lindsey when we were little (I think I was 5 or 6?) and kept on for many years.  We had weekly lessons during the school year and not a summer went by we didn't have horse camp.  As I got older, things got busier and I had too much time invested in softball to own a horse, so I made the tough decision to move away from horseback riding.  That being said, I miss it all the time.  It was always such a relaxing and peaceful activity for me and I truly miss it.  So while Kathryn was here, she brought up doing horseback riding and I jumped at the idea.

Kathryn did most of the leg work for this activity and after reviewing many places, she settled on this place called Happy Trails in Wailua in the North Shore.  We wound our way up a road with tight switchbacks and made it to the gate of the property.  After a little wait for the rest of the group to arrive, we were matched with our horses.  The owner buys primarily retired polo horses, which are usually well trained and follow commands well.  Kathryn and I ended up in the back of the group, but in the long run it didn't matter too much where we were.  We had a guide in the front of the group and then the owner caught up to us about half way through our ride.  The ride was all trails, up and down, and very muddy.  Unfortunately that meant nothing so much as a trot speed-wise.  It was still beautiful, though.  I spent a good portion of the ride talking to the owner about how he got into the horse ranch business (he was a polo player himself) and then ended up talking shop (I ended up leaving him with a home exercise program for a nagging injury he had...PTs are never off the clock haha...)

The end of the ride brought us out to a paddock overlooking the North Shore, which made for a perfect photo-op.  Kathryn and I both thoroughly enjoyed the ride, though we would have had a little more fun with a little cantering here or there.  Being back in the saddle brought back a lot of great memories, I guess one of these days I'll need to get back to horseback riding :-)

Kualoa Ranch Movie And ATV Tour

I One of the places we've heard about on the island over and over again is "the ranch".  There are multiple ranches across the island, but Kualoa Ranch is the biggest on Oahu and most well known.  While they still function as a cattle ranch, they have diversified into other areas of agriculture as well as tourism and entertainment.  Many movies and TV shows have been filmed here (Jurassic Park, 50 First Dates, Pearl Harbor, Lost, Hawaii Five-O) with more happening every month.  Even while filming, there are group tours on buses, ATVs (All-terrain vehicles), and horseback.  Everyone always talks about how the ATVing is the best, so we signed up for that.  Since we were already going to be out that side of the island, we decided to do the bus tour of the movie sites first and then follow with the ATVs.

The ranch is on the opposite side of the island from where we live, kind of  between the North Shore and Kailua/Kaneohe.  Once you get out of Kaneohe town, the Kamehameha Highway is a beautiful, mostly waterfront drive in the Hawaiian "country".  No major stores or stoplights, just a nice winding road.  Just across the street from the ranch is the famed China Man's Hat moke, famous for it's obvious shape.

The property that the state now owns that includes the beach park for China Man's Hat used to be part of Kualoa Ranch until World War II when the government occupied much of the ranch for its strategic location on the island.  They built bunkers, made camps, even made an air strip.  After the war was over, they returned "most" of the property, but the state kept some key pieces.  There is a ton more history to the ranch, but I won't bore you all with it here...

Now onto our excursions...For the bus tour, think school bus with no windows.  Not the most luxurious or comfortable modes of transportation, but you can't expect much when you're bouncing through dirt roads on a ranch.  The tour stops at several "famous" spots to get out and do a little exploring (like WWII bunkers used in many films, Hurley's golf course from Lost, Godzilla's footprint, "the log" from the first Jurassic Park.  Pretty neat, but we were ready for some excitement with the ATVs.

For anyone that has never been ATVing...it...is...fun.  I got my first taste of it many years ago in Louisiana when we were there for the softball world series and staying with an awesome host family (shout out to my Abbeville people!) and I was very excited to do it again.  Kathryn and Joe had never done it, so it was good we had a short practice drive before we went out with our group of 6 with a guide.  Part of the tour was a duplicate of the bus tour, but then we were able to go places the bus could not.  Most set pieces from films have to be broken down after filming is complete, but occasionally they keep some.  One of these was for the Gyroscope Ride platform from Jurassic World, which was way up the side of the mountain and very cool to walk out on.  We opted to do the 2 hour tour versus the 1 hour and we were glad we did because time flew by.  We were up hill, down hill, through streams, through brush and jungle...a little bit of everything.

The ranch has even more activities daily which we may need to check out when we have more visitors, but the ATV tour was definitely worth the trip out to the ranch and I highly recommend it to anyone with a little bit of an adrenaline junkie living in their subconscious! Aloha!