Yesterday was a travel day, so I did not bother writing. The title of this entry says it all, pretty much. Although I did manage to leave my backpack behind in the condo in Maui, so they’re going to have to mail it back to me in Yellowknife. Thankfully it only has souvenirs and gifts… and my water bottle. At any rate, we returned the Charger to Avis and took a Southwest Airlines flight across to Honolulu. That was actually a little surreal. I felt like I was flying on Canadian North 10 or more years ago; Southwest doesn’t assign seats, rather they call boarding by group numbers and you can sit in whatever seat you want. I had to stop myself from overthinking about manifests and such. And they flew us on a 737-Max 8, too, so the flight took a whole 24 minutes. Sorry, no inflight service for such a short flight, lol!
We landed in Honolulu and picked up another car from Avis. This time, since we were only going to be on Oahu for two nights, we decided to have a little fun and rent a convertible. They gave us a Ford Mustang. Sweet ride, and we’re having fun with it, but it’s a pretty tight fit for us and really not a practical vehicle.
At any rate, we made our way to Papaya Paradise B&B in Kailua. It’s in a residential area and not a true B&B (no breakfast), but a lovely guestroom attached to the owner’s home. The yard is beautiful and there’s a small pool next to the lanai.
We decided to get some ramen for supper and found Rei Rei Ramen not far from the B&B. It’s a small restaurant but very clean and fresh, and the ramen was wonderful!
Today we got up relatively early to make our way to Kualoa Ranch Private Nature Preserve. On the way we stopped at Kalapawai Cafe and Deli for breakfast on the road. One Cinnamon Roll and one Nutella Brioche, a hot chocolate (of course) and a coffee, and hit the road. The pastries were soooo good!
The drive to the Ranch is about 40 minutes or so (depending of course on construction). The Preserve is a huge area that includes everything from fish/oyster ponds and fruit and vegetable gardens to cattle ranching. They offer multiple tour options for the area. Dan and I took the Kualoa Grown Tour in the morning. Our guide Wonka took us around to the gardens and fish ponds, and a sampling of poi (still as tasteless as the first time I tried it), dried tuna (very tasty — making up for the poi), and a piece of pineapple as a kind of palate cleanser. Later in the tour we also got to try a piece of raw cacao, which is actually not bad until you actually bite into it. The bitter part is clearly in the centre of the bean. This tour also took us by the sites where the outdoor cafe scenes were filmed for 50 First Dates and where Chris Pratt’s character lived in the trailer in Jurassic World.
After that tour we had lunch at Aunty Pat’s Cafe while we waited for the second tour. The food served there is primarily sourced from the Ranch’s produce, including the shrimp I had and the pork bulgogi. It was very good, and the price was reasonable.
The second tour we went on was a lot of fun. It was the 2-hour long UTV Raptor Tour. Dan drove us in a Kawasaki side-by-side in a group of about 7 vehicles following our guides Michael and Raymond throughout the property. What an amazing property! Our guides were fun and informed, and provided not only a description of what movies were filmed where, but also cultural stories and legends. It was totally worth getting covered in dust for.
We returned to the B&B and showered the dust off before going out for supper. We picked a place at random again by surfing Open Table’s top 10 restaurants near me and went to Goen Dining + Bar. I cannot emphasize how lucky we have been with our choices of places to eat during this trip. The service and food here were fantastic yet again. We shared the Burratta Caprese appetizer, I had the Misoyaki Butterfish, and Dan had the special baked Penne with marinara and alfredo sauce and all sorts of meat and cheeses. Dan’s dish was very generous, so much so that he couldn’t eat more than half of it. We’ll see if he actually eats the other half for breakfast as planned.
Thus ends our last night in paradise, although we do have all day here tomorrow before our flight home leaves tomorrow night.
Aloha ahiahi!
Adelle and Dan
Guigon Travels 