On Saturday morning and our last day touring Oahu, we went south and east to East Honolulu and our quickie, first stop, The Koko Crater Lookout and its popular hiking trail. Like so much of Oahu, the view was spectacular, and even though the day started out cloudy, it was still warm enough to get away with a light jacket–the heaviest clothing I would wear the entire trip. (Note here: my Facebook buds back in the DMV posted that the weather there had turned decidedly wintry.)
We next arrived at the Byodo-In Temple, located at the foot of the Ko’olau Mountains in Valley of the Temples Memorial Park. Its website describes the temple as “a smaller-scale replica of the almost 1,000-year-old Byodo-In Temple, a United Nations World Heritage site in Uji, Japan.” The temple and grounds were incredibly beautiful. I did my best to capture its beauty in a number of photos, a few of which are below:
Hawaii’s number one industry is tourism, and they are very intentional in their support of this industry. Each day of our tour included at least one store and a regional restaurant where our tourist dollars could be spent. This day, we continued down Kamehameha Highway and stopped at Tropical Farms of Hawai’i, a store that specialized in products made from macadamia nuts. I found a meat rub that I thought my grill master younger brother would enjoy testing. Unfortunately, I forgot that a bottle that size would need to be packed in checked luggage for the trip back, so the rub didn’t make it past the TSA. BTW, I mentioned this store because of the feral chicken that wandered in its yard. Wes, our tour guide, told us stories about these chickens that roam freely all over the island. I’m going to share this story about how they came to thrive on Oahu. Actually the entire state has so many different flora, fauna, and people from around the world who have made the islands their home–sometimes for the good, sometimes not so much (see this information about rats and mongoose).
Our last stop was the Kualoa Ranch, a private nature reserve known for its decades-long use as locations for numerous motion pictures (for example, the Jurassic Park films) and television programs, ie., Hawaii 5-0. We had a nice lunch with a presentation on hula dancing by ranch staff, followed by a tour of the ranch itself. The guide was asked what current projects were in production, and he said that they were contractually restricted from giving out that information. Unfortunately, I must have forgotten to charge my phone the night before, so it died before we got far into the tour. However, I did get a few shots, some of which are below:
Wes delivered us to the port where our cruise ship, Pride of America, was docked. My travel agent had initially registered me as needing accessibility assistance, which really sped me through the process of boarding the ship and locating my room on Deck 13. My luggage had already been delivered from the hotel, so I was able to organize my room and the things I would need to come and go about the ship. I did have some issues arise related to the amenities that were supposed to be available to me, but a call to my travel agent helped get matters addressed so that I could go on deck and witness the ship’s launch.
I did get a handful of pictures, but I’ll share the very short video I captured of the launch below:
That first night of my first cruise meant getting used to the motion of the ship. Although lying down was a little challenging for my stomach, I never had to consider taking a Dramamine.
We arrived in Maui early Sunday morning. I’m not sure why I didn’t schedule an excursion there that morning, but I decided to use the time to explore the ship. The highlight of the day was dinner at the ship’s Japanese restaurant. The food preparation was very entertaining, and I stuffed myself with the surf ‘n turf meal and tasty dessert. Pix are below:
Pictures from this day are available at https://singin1.pics/piwigo/index.php?/category/Hawaiian-Cruise-2024-Day-5.
BTW, I found this display noting the route of the cruise with a map of Hawai’i and where the ship was scheduled to be each day. That night, we were docked in Maui and not set to leave for the Big Island until Monday evening.
I had an extremely early morning scheduled the next day, so I called it an early night.