Day 8

This was my favorite day of the whole trip! We rented a car and headed up to the north shore. It is so amazing how the landscape and vegetation changes so dramatically when you get out of Waikiki Beach. The island is only 30 miles from north to south and 60 miles from east to west, but because of traffic, poor road conditions, and lack of roads in certain spots, it takes a long time to navigate the whole island! On this day, we decided to visit a bunch of different places.

We went to the Dole Pineapple Plantation where we tried our hand at the world's largest maze, which took us about an hour. We only found 6 of the 8 stations that we were supposed to find! The hedges are around 8 feet tall and there are over 3 miles of paths in the whole maze! After the maze we treated ourselves to a Dole Whip, which is not ice cream and not sorbet. It is somewhere in between and is full of pineapple tastiness!!







Next, we went to the Waimea Falls, which featured an Audobon Nature Preserve. I took a bunch of pictures there and here are my favorites:

The Nature Center:















A Cannon Ball Tree (each round ball weighs about 10 pounds!)



The Men's Hut



The Women's Hut



Waimea Falls







Our final stop of the day was the Kona Brewing Company which took a bit of driving around and getting lost to find, but it was well worth it when we found it! We beat the dinner crowds because we were eating our traditional "linner" and some really tasty beverages. I had a "gingerade" which was non-alcoholic and tasted a bit like a really gingery lemonade. Charley and the Pool's tried some of the various brews and we all gorged on a delicious meal! Here are some pictures from our view on the deck of the restaurant.