Waimea Valley

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Waimea Valley, Haleiwa, HI

Remember when I said that the Waimea River empties into Waimea Bay and if you follow the rive up you get to Waimea Valley? Well, there’s a park there called.. ahem.. wait for it…. Waimea Valley. Its mission is to “preserve and perpetuate the human, cultural and natural resources of Waimea for generations through education and stewardship.” In addition to having a beautiful botanical garden, they’re all about Hawaiian culture and resources and sustainability and have many education programs.

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Dallas Pointing to Hibiscus :: Waimea Valley, Haleiwa, HI

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Waimea Valley, Haleiwa, HI

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Waimea Valley, Haleiwa, HI

Dallas’s friend Hoku works at Waimea Valley as a Cultural Specialist and Field Educator. This seems like an awesome job. He’s required to spend 75% of his time outside where he teaches people, anywhere from kindergarten age up through college students, about Hawaiian culture, native plants, folklore, wildlife, sustainability, conservation, and all sorts of things. Hoku and Dallas used to be great friends in school and hadn’t seen each other for 15 years. When Hoku met us at the gate there was a lot of man hugging. We walked through the gardens a bit and then Hoku got us a golf cart and took us straight to what we came for. At the back of the park there’s a small waterfall and swimming hole.

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Waimea Valley, Haleiwa, HI

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Waimea Valley, Haleiwa, HI

Dallas and I didn’t need much encouragement to jump right in and wash off all of the salt water and sand that had accumulated on our skin while hanging out at the beach. So refreshing and crisp. Waimea Valley provides life vests or kickboards, but we both just swam out to the waterfall and swam back.

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Rachelle & Dallas :: Waimea Valley, Haleiwa, HI

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Hoku & Dallas :: Waimea Valley, Haleiwa, HI

5 thoughts on “Waimea Valley

  1. Seriously. You need to stop posting things I want…from food to exceptional pretty, it’s getting to be too much for me to take 🙂

    • sounds like you are due for a trip to the islands! i have many more photos for you to continue on your virtual vacation. I’m still posting from our first week of vaca and we were there through the following week! 🙂

    • I still look like that now too. I have to use a lot of sunscreen there because I burn easily. Also, a lot of the times I was hanging around the pool or beach I had a big beach umbrella.

  2. How deep is the water & is it dirty? I’ve been to Oahu several times but never got to experience a waterfall thats swimmable but I have been to Waimea Valley but the waterfall was closed for filming.

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