KUALOA RANCH, HAWAII

 This Covid 19 Pandemic is starting to get me down.  I was happy to stay at home for a few months and clean out my cupboards and drawers but now I am over it and want to go travel.  Instead, things are going downhill and we are almost back to to lock down again as new deaths are announced daily in Hawaii.  Who knows when I will be able to share a travel post again here.  Apart from quarantines on arrival here and at other places, there are no flights going out to Pacific places that I want to go to and if you are on a US passport you are not wanted either.    Bother!  Bother!  Bother!

Anyways.....I suddenly had a thought today.  I can write about a lovely outing I had last month..  No tourists on island but the virus numbers at the time were almost non existent and some of the visitor attractions were opening up and giving special rates to locals to get some customers.  Kualoa Ranch is on the windward coast of the island of Oahu.  I pass it often as I drive to Honolulu from home and always admire the view of the mountains, ranch and ocean.  I also see the tourists exploring the ranch in open air vehicles and wish that I could go and have a look into the back of the valleys like them.  With the lower cost and feeling that I could give  some support to a local business, I went and spent a day there taking two tours plus I bought  lunch.  The ranch has existed for 170 years now and has been owned by the Judd family all that time.  It is a big bit of land, 4000 acres, with ocean front land and two valleys that go back into the hills plus a beautiful range of steep mountains in the middle dividing those valleys,  For many years it got its money from raising beef but these days, like many agriculture ventures, it has a growing tourist adventure activity side to cover the ranch costs.  There is still beef farming and the original horse riding but lots of other land and ocean activities as well.  The valleys have also been used as a site for many movies so the movie site tour is popular.  The landscape and views are fabulous and there is also the ancient history of the place as well as modern history of  a sugar mill and a WW ll air base.

I was thrilled to play tourist for the day and finally see the back areas of the ranch.  I am sharing a few photos here and if you want to learn more about the place you can go to their website  ......kualoa.com.  The opening photo on their site will show you what a stunning place it is.  The two tours I went on were up the two valleys on either side of the mountain range.  I was thrilled that we actually went on a mini hike up to a low saddle where we could see into both valleys at one time and up where native trees were still growing wild.  I have tried to make an explanation on each of the photos but either it is not working right or I do not know what I am doing with the new system...so....sorry but it is just photos on their own.  In the photo of the chickens, they are all hanging out in a mini forest of pigeon pea plants giving them shade and the occasional dropped pea as a reward.  I thought that was a really good idea.   Remember you can click on the photos to have them enlarged. 

Aloha