Kualoa Ranch

Another stop in Hawaii, and one of our favorites was the Kualoa Ranch. This is a 400 acre cattle ranch North of Waikiki. The ranch makes its money by raising beef cattle, providing sets for movies, and tours.

Pictures of the ranch. The one on the left is immediately west of the freeway, the one on the left is immediately east of the freeway. It was really weird to see a ranch so close to the ocean. The cows could literally fall into the ocean if they got close enough to the edge. It was raining the day we visited the ranch, which is why they pictures are all foggy looking.

Before our bus tour. I will explain the shirts later.

The ranch offered a couple of different tours. One on horseback ( you should have seen the Japanese tourists getting on :)), movie site tour, which is the tour we took, quad tours, and some scenic tours. This is the bus we rode on the tour.

This was the first stop on our tour. During WWII the army took over part of the ranch and made bunkers like this one as well as a runway. The army has since given back the property to the ranch, but the bunkers are all still there today.
The ranch is known for the movies and tv shows that have been filmed on it. Some examples are 50 First Dates, Pearl Harbor, Jurassic Park, Godzilla, and all episodes of the tv show Lost.

Here is the the log that the people of Jurassic Park hid behind when the dinosaurs were chasing them in the valley.

One of Godzilla's footprints.

A picture from You, Me, & Dupree. Not sure what scene it was from though.

50 First dates scene. We went down the road that Adam Sandler used to stop Drew Barrymore every morning on her way to the Diner. The diner is still open, we didn't get a chance to go see it though.

A recreation of how the Hawaiian people used to live. The women and children used to live together in a hut, and the men lived in another hut. By the way, in this culture, men are the ones who COOK!!

Some cows that are on the ranch. They have about 400 head of cows and 15 head of bulls. They were really proud of this number, but to put it in perspective, the ranch Sam worked on a couple of summers ago has 3000 head of cows and about 500 head of bulls on 132,000 acres. So, a large portion of the money made on the ranch is definitely not from the cattle. But, if you think about the fact that all the cattle in Hawaii had to be imported from somewhere else, 400 isn't that bad of a number after all.

Picture of us on that wonderful bus before we got done with our tour. Sam says it was like riding on Dad's limo dump truck