Dole Plantation

Originally we had planned to climb Diamondhead but since we’d missed the Dole Plantation on Tuesday we wanted to squeeze that in somewhere so with the hike up Makapu’u and the walk to Waimea Falls under our belts, we felt we could take an exercise break. So Dole Plantation was the choice of the day.
This time we found it without detouring to the Correctional Facility. If we hadn’t had a car we could have gotten there by taking TheBus #52 (Wahiawa-Circle Island) from Ala Moana Shopping Center but we didn’t know that at the time. It was only about a 40 minute drive since we didn’t get lost.

The Dole Plantation was another surprise. It was much more than I expected. First of all, I had never seen a pineapple growing so it hit me, I didn’t know if they grew in the ground, on vines, or bushes or trees! Well, we found out. They grow out of the pineapple plant very low to the ground.

We bought a ticket to try to beat the maze. It’s a huge maze and there are stations hidden through out. The goal is to get a stamp at each station. You aren’t supposed to come out until you have all of your stamps. It was hot, and sweaty and we ran out of water before we’d been at it very long. In the end we got about ½ way though when we gave up! The maze beat us for sure. It was time for something a little less strenuous. We took a ride on Pineapple Express.

This little train takes you around the Plantation past fields of pineapples to manicured lawns and flower gardens. It’s about a 2 mile narrated ride so it’s quite educational as well as a break from The Maze. The plowed fields were an amazing deep rust brown. The rich volcanic soil has a large amount of iron in it and the red color is …rust! Iron oxide.

The “boarding pass” included admission to the botanical gardens and as we wandered around looking at the plants we were approached by one of the employees or maybe a volunteer who took us on a tour of the gardens. We saw banana trees loaded with bananas, tall palms that almost looked like puffy pine trees, flowers and ponds, but the best one was the Rainbow Bark Tree. It looks like someone threw paint on it. I believe it is part of the eucalyptus family. I loved the sign posts in the gardens too. They pointed in all directions with mileage to each place, Pearl harbor, Antarctica, North Pole, Toronto, such whimsy!

We had lunch in the plantation cafeteria . Just basic vacation fare, hot dog, hamburger type lunch. While we sat at a picnic table another cardinal stopped by right near us. But this one was more like what we were used to seeing, red. Before we left we took each other’s pictures in the pineapples, Sandy’s played a ukulele and mine was doing the hula.

Leaving the Dole Plantation was a bit of a let down. This was our last night in Hawaii. We were headed back to the condo to pack up so we could check out in the morning. One of the things I like about staying in a time share is the perk of having a laundry on site. That way we were able to wash everything out so we weren’t dragging dirty clothes back home. I wasn’t ready to leave. There was still so much to see and do.
　
　
　

　
　

　
　

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