Day 7 – Treated like royalty

Today we finally had a chance to meet Dr. Terry Hunt, from University of Hawai’i. He gave a lecture about the history of Polynesia and offered some insight as to why and how humans populated the various islands. The lecture helped provide some context for our study area. I thought is was interesting to think about how humans were always pushing the envelope to discover new places. After the lecture we embarked on a guided tour, given by Kualoa Ranch owner John Morgan himself, who had a wealth of firsthand knowledge about all the ins-and-outs of the ranch property. Once owned by King Kamehameha III, the ranch was sold to the Judd family who was the current owner’s great, great grandfather. Some of the interesting history of the ranch was that it once served as a military air strip as well as a sugar mill. I thought that was pretty cool since my grandfather served here around the same time that the air strip was initiated.

Historic sugar mill

What remains of the sugar mill

The rest of the tour wound us through the western portion of the ranch, the Ka’a’awa Valley. We explored the various water features, vegetation and of course, the old artifacts from well-known Hollywood movie sets like Jurassic Park. The grounds were absolutely beautiful and awe-inspiring. There were some really interesting trees and other little hidden curiosities.

Beach View from Kualoa Ranch

Post tour, we headed back “home” to Tradewinds to begin brainstorming for the creation of our data dictionaries that we will load into the GPS units tomorrow. This essentially will make our field work much more efficient. Today’s pictures are here Back at the farmhouse, things are going well. Everyone is figuring everyone else out and we are starting to settle into our routines. Between getting dark here around 8 p.m. and the remaining jet lag, everyone is winding down earlier than expected. I am really looking forward to working in the field tomorrow. I think this is when scattered ideas will begin to evolve into more focused and meaningful research questions.   Bus tour video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMYKI2-1Qfg