Kualoa Ranch Adventure!

Saturday morning we got up really early and were on the road by 7am. Quinn had planned an entire day of adventures for Dad's birthday. Once we got checked in we found Heather, one of the girls from our Mini-Church, she introduced us to Topher... who would be Quinn's "cousin" for the day, allowing us to go on an extra tour for free!

Our first adventure was on the ATVs...

Garth was our tour guide, lucky for us we knew what we were doing so we picked the last 3 ATVs so we could goof off, the ladies in front of us needed some help, so he was mainly focused on them. We had competitions to see who could go the fastest! shhhh....

Our second adventure took us thru the jungle...

Godfrey was our tour guide, he was very knowledgeable about the area, how the land was divided in the ancient Hawaiian days, how the fishing pond was originally made to be utilized, and of course pointing out any areas that movies were filmed in (most recent- Hunger Games 2). The middle of the tour there was a short but steep hike which provided an amazing view looking back towards base and into the valley (you can see the Atlantis set still up)!

Our final (and free) tour was the movie sets...

Topher, Quinn's "cousin" was our guide! It was the three of us and a European couple in this giant school bus, pretty silly. We got halfway thru the tour and our bus broke down, so they sent a mini-bus which fit us better anyway! There were SO many movies and television shows filmed here there's absolutely no way to list them all! There is also a lot of history to this 'aina (land) during WWII it was actually converted into a temporary flight line! They had to use metal sheets with holes punched out so they weren't too heavy causing sinkage. The bunker is original, it wasn't built for a movie but has been used in many films and TV shows (such as LOST). Our favorite group picture is definitely the Jurassic Park one- we also learned that the "moo" sound these cows make are extremely different from the cows on the mainland and were used as background dinosaur noises in the films!

We enjoyed all-you-can-eat lunch at the ranch house, then wandered thru the giftshop making sure to grab a photo with Heather before we headed home to shower and relax after such a fun-filled morning/afternoon!