Hiking Hawaii: Oahu's Waimea Valley

Despite my running title, this isn't a "hike" in that the entire place is paved, you pay to get in, and there's a shuttle if you don't want to walk.  Oh, and there's also a giftshop :P But, seeing as we did meander among the foliage for several hours, it was good enough exercise .

Waimea Valley is in North Oahu.  It's $15 a tourist to enter, but you can tell that the admission is put to good use in the creation and maintenance of a very extensive garden.  This is a great place to come and practice floral photography, or to learn more about plant species!

These leaves look like they were painted!

Saplings :3

I enjoyed walking around, on the look out for the little blue tags that explained more about different kinds of flowers, trees and other plants.

Weird tree

Love how it spirals

These remind me of Lotad..

These may look like blossoms on the ground - but they are really sprouted flowers that grow close to the ground without their leaves! Weird, and cool.

Non-water Taro garden~

Sak had remembered coming here in his youth - but could only really remember throwing a spear at a target in the demonstration area. But I'm sure the variety of hibiscus is not really on the mind of a 10 year old boy.

This was my favorite hibiscus variety - it's like a flower on a flower!

The park is laid out in different sections, such as gingers, hibiscus, different world regions, etc.

...This was the Jurassic Park section, obviously. 

There's also a reconstructed village and demonstrations of early Hawaiian life. I liked the animal pen, which was made of rocks.

At the end of the path, there's a waterfall - the highlight of the park.  They allow you to swim in the basin, provided you wear one of their life jackets.  There's a life guard on duty as well.  Though I can't really see why you'd want to swim in a muddy waterfall basin - especially when there's signs all around warning of leptospirosis.  But all the kids there seemed excited about it :)

This is a nice place to visit if you like plants and paved ground.  There are many picnic spots too, though Sak and I didn't bring any snacks.  Luckily there was all the good eats in Haleiwa down the road!