PINING FOR PINEAPPLES - THE HAWAII JOURNEY

On the 2nd day of our stay in Hawaii, we had our complimentary breakfast in the hotel and went to Central O‘ahu, the fertile valley between the Wai‘anae and Ko‘olau mountain ranges, to explore the island’s plantation heritage.

There are plenty of plantations in this area and form the basis for the agricultural history at Hawai. This fertile land offers a peek into Oʻahu’s history when the agriculture on the island was booming in the late 19th century, attracting immigrants from around the world to work in the various plantations.

We stopped at the Dole Plantation, which originally in 1950s was just a fruit stand, it opened to the public as Hawaii’s “Pineapple Experience” in 1989.

Now Dole Plantation is one of Oahu’s most popular visitor attractions and welcomes more than one million visitors a year. 

As we went in the morning we could find parking space easily which is usually a difficult task in Hawaii.

We first took the tickets, it is said that one can chug, wander, shop, ride, taste, or stroll through the Dole plantation. 

Dole Plantation provides enjoyable activities for the entire family, including the Pineapple Express Train Tour, Plantation Garden Tour, and Pineapple Garden Maze. 

I found plenty of informational displays and presentations, and a colourful plantation country store offering a wide variety of Dole Plantation gifts and Maui Divers jewelry.

Established in 1959, Maui Divers Jewelry is the largest creator of precious coral jewelry in the world and the largest jewelry manufacturer in Hawaii and is renowned for its unique, high-quality island style jewelry, featuring Tahitian pearls, Australian opals, Hawaiian heirloom diamonds, and other beautiful gemstone, as usual I did only window shopping .There were local favorites, foods and refreshments including the world-famous Dole Soft Serve! 

The pineapple which is quite fierce and prickly from outside but absolutely sweet on the inside, got its English name due to its resemblance to a pine cone. 

Columbus took this native fruit of South America to Europe as one of his exotic prizes of the New World. In later centuries, sailors brought the pineapple home to New England, interestingly when a fresh pineapple is displayed on the porch it meant that the sailor was home from foreign ports and ready to welcome visitors. I really liked this unique idea!

No one knows when the first pineapple (“halakahiki,” or foreign fruit, in Hawaiian) arrived in Hawaii. Francisco de Paula Marin, a Spanish adventurer who became a trusted advisor to King Kamehameha the Great, successfully raised pineapples in the early 1800s. 

A sailor, Captain John Kidwell, is credited with founding Hawaii’s pineapple industry, importing and testing a number of varieties in the 1800s for commercial crop potential. But, it wasn’t until James Drummond Dole arrived in the islands that the pineapple was transformed from an American symbol of friendship to a favourite fruit in Hawaii and a signature food which spread all over the world

James Drummond Dole passed away in 1958 at the age of 80. The Hawaiian Pineapple Company he founded is now known the world over as Dole Food Company, one of the most recognized brands in the world today.

We wanted to see the plantation on the Pineapple Express train for a narrated tour through breath taking vistas that were part of James Drummond Dole’s plantation when pineapple was the king of the fruits

The Pine Apple express was originally built in England by Severn Lamb, it is driven with diesel motor and hydraulic pump, very much like a bulldozer .The engine and train are modelled after an 1870 design with tender and has 4 passenger cars 

There was an enclosure where we had to wait for the train, there were mostly children accompanied by their parents

We waited for about half an hour during which our grandson found a large worm and a moth both of which he befriended and wanted to take home as pets much to the horror of my daughter in law, finally the train chugged in hooting the whistle enthusiastically, it was like a toy train and we got in with our reluctant grandson who wanted to sit with the engine driver and drive the train

This fully narrated, twenty-minute train tour was fun, we learnt the story of pineapple in Hawaii and heard how James Drummond Dole founded his world-famous agricultural empire where Dole Plantation stands today, we enjoyed going through the stunning scenery of the island’s famous North Shore, there were fields of many fruit trees like orange, lychee etc, there were few natural and few man made water bodies and of course we could watch the farming going on

There are some more trains like the Lady Liberty train which arrived in the islands in 2003 and was designed as a replica of a Mason Bogey originally manufactured by Mason Machine works in Taunton, Massachusetts in 1883 it was popular in early 1900’s as it is capable of running on 3’ gauge tracks on hills and over sharp curves and was being used all over United States in mining and short line passenger services ,another train is the Aloha express which was  built in China and runs on diesel, it has 3 passenger cars

After the hot train journey we cooled down with a delicious frozen Dole whip treat which was so awesome that we all had another helping 

Both kids and adults were running through the huge three-acre shrub maze and enjoying immensely, it was apparently recognized by Guinness world records in 2008 and was declared the world’s largest maze. The maze includes nearly two and one-half miles of paths crafted from 14,000 colourful Hawaiian plants.

We have to walk through the flora of the islands and seek out eight secret stations that each leads one closer to the mystery at the heart of this larger-than-life labyrinth, one of only a handful of permanent botanical mazes in America. For an enhanced maze experience, one can download free Dole Plantation app on phone to automatically track time and maze stations found.

At the Hawaii Plantation Village we can explore a living history museum of restored and replica sugar-cane plantation homes to get a sense of how people lived and worked more than 100 years ago and I am sure it was a tough life but enjoyable 

We were walking towards our car and I was busy clicking snaps unmindful of the traffic, suddenly a car came my way and was about to hit me when our valiant 4 year old grandson ordered the driver to stop with a stern look on his face, the driver a lady  smiled at him and said “I like you young man!” that was very sportive of her I thought avoiding my husband’s admonishing looks at my carelessness.