Kualoa Ranch and Movie Sites

 

Yesterday we headed out to Kualoa Ranch to take in the scenery and do their Movie sites tour.  The tour takes you to the different locations of movies that were filmed here.  Some of the movies included Jurassic Park, Pearl Harbor, Godzilla, and tv show’s Lost and Hawaii 5-0.  It took about an hour and a half to drive to the Ranch, which is located in Kaneohe in the Ka’a’awa valley, right across from Chinaman’s Hat. It has amazing views of the ocean and the northeast side.  After eating lunch, we boarded an open air bus and took an hour drive around the ranch.

First we stopped at the ruins of an old sugar mill, the first sugar mill on the island.

Then, we drove through old WWII bunkers and got to see some Texas longhorns and some cows.  Stopped at one of the bunkers where they had posters of some of the movies shot there.  I guess there were about 80 movies filmed at the ranch.

Then we got to see where they filmed Lost, Jurassic Park and 50 First Dates.  I learned that Adam Sandler has family up in Laie and he goes there often to play ball with the kids.  How cool is that?  I also learned that they were gonna start filming the new Hawaii 5-0 this week!  They also showed us other sites, like Godzilla and Windtalkers and some other movies I didn’t really care about.  LOL.

Jamie’s friend Rob is visiting us from Illinois.   

The view of Chinaman’s Hat (Mokoli’i Island) from the ranch.

 

Overall it was a fun experience.  The tour kinda reminded me of the LOTR Hobbiton Tour we took in New Zealand.

I had never been to Kualoa ranch and I want to do it again!  They also have ATV tours, ocean expeditions, horseback riding, and a jungle expedition that I want to try.   After this we went to tour a macadamia nut farm but there wasn’t much to see there.