First stop was Waimea Falls to do the waterfall hike...
Today's hike was an easy hike! We crossed a couple bridges...
And stopped in the gardens to take pictures along the way... this picture reminded me of a scene out of "The Secret Garden"... the hole in the hedge was like a secret passageway into the garden...
The gardens were beautiful...
And of course I had to take a rock picture for my mom...
Or two...
One more bridge to cross and we were at the waterfall...
Not the biggest waterfall ever but still a great place to take handstand pics...
We also enjoyed cooling off in the water... we didn't swim because we were short on time and the water was really cold and a little murky but it felt good to put our hands in and splash around a little...
Waimea falls is not very big but it has been used for cliff diving which is really cool... there are lifeguards on duty which was nice to see because you can actually swim under the falls... I think we could have spent more time here if we didn't have to be at our next excursion by 2:30, on the other side of the island. Since traffic is unpredictable, we wanted to leave plenty of time to make our Dolphin appointment!
We ran the entire trail back to the truck except for a few handstand pictures! We had to capture this massive Monkey Pod tree because they are everywhere in Hawaii!
While we were taking the monkey pod tree handstands, we met Willie... Willie was on vacation with his family and noticed our handstands! We told him about Traveling Handstands and he offered to do one with us...
Great job Willie! He taught himself how to do handstands and was pretty good at them...
Goodbye Waimea Falls... onward and forward to Sea Life Park... We got to drive on H3 which goes across and through the mountains... there is an actual tunnel through the mountain... so cool... and on the other side of the tunnel are some pretty spectacular views! The east side is the more tropical side of O'ahu so everything was very green. We also passed the "Stairway to Heaven" hike which is one of the forbidden trails in Hawaii... there is an actual guard at the bottom of the hike because it is not a safe hike... people still hike it though... they arrive before the guard is on duty and will often get a ticket on their way out. One of the girls snapped a quick picture of the trail as we were driving by...
Thankfully the traffic wasn't too bad on the east side so we made good time... we were able to capture a few Sea Life Park handstand pictures before our "Royal Dolphin Swim"... The "Royal" swim includes the foot push and the dorsal fin pull by two dolphins... it is really neat!!!
We also arrived in time to watch the dolphin show at the Hawaii Ocean Theatre... fun...
The view inside the theatre was really cool...
And the show was cool too... they even carried around a little penguin for everyone to see...
After the show, we walked by the turtles on our way to see the dolphins...
Swimming with the dolphins was amazing!!! Our dolphin trainer, Samantha, was so much fun... you could tell that she loved her job and especially loved the dolphins... she was GREAT!!! This is my third time swimming with the dolphins and this experience was the best by far!!! I was so excited to capture this shot of the girls with one of the dolphins that we swam with...
Since this was our last full day in Hawaii, we wanted to get the most out of it so we stopped at a couple beaches on the way home... this was the view of the mountains from one of the beach parking lots... it rained for about 20 minutes and then the sun came back out... the weather changes are really neat in Hawaii...
This next picture was taken shortly after the last and as you can see the sky is completely different! At one point, I think it was raining on one side of the highway and not the other...
We continued our drive home but kept running into scenic overlook spots so we stopped again and again for more handstand pictures. This next picture is a great shot of Koko Head as the sun goes down...
And our last pic of the day...
"Goodnight O'ahu"
~Day 8 Hawaii Handstands
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