Waterfalls and Playing Ball
Today we were lucky enough to walk through the beautiful Waimea Valley and visit the spectacular Waimea Falls. While the Australian bush has its own unique beauty, it’s quite another thing to walk through towering palm trees and banyan trees and see frangipanis, hibiscus, birds of paradise and other incredibly colourful and exotic flowers just growing in the wild. It’s gorgeous!
We hadn’t been too sure what to expect, “trekking” through the Waimea Valley. We’d insisted on everyone wearing sneakers in case we’d had to traverse through muddy jungle tracks, never before trodden by human feet. I was picturing us with machetes, hacking at vines and forging a way through Indiana Jones style, until we glimpsed the magnificent Falls we were seeking. Well….it wasn’t quite like that! While the ‘bush’ was left fairly untouched, there were wide bitumen roads to walk on, heavily sign-posted, and you even had the option of being shuttled along in a golf cart if it got too much for you. Can you imagine Indiana Jones opting to travel in a golf cart? To make us feel a little more intrepid, Keryn and I took the high road, which we got to by climbing some rock stairs.
We did notice a lack of colourful birds in the rainforest- most of them grey – and realised that Australia does house some of the most amazing and colourful birds in the world. The sound of the mammoth waterfall reached our ears before we caught sight of it and it was indeed spectacular! There was a lifeguard tent there, manned by two very handsome lifeguards, who gave us the safety briefing before we entered the water. All the kids that were 12 and under had to be decked out in a state of the art lifejacket before taking the plunge, which they didn’t mind at all. Maisy, Georgia and Chelsea loved bobbing around in their jackets and they were even given pool noodles to make the journey across the pool a little less taxing. The large pool that the Waimea Falls splash into is 30 foot deep in most parts!
Once in the refreshing waters of the freshwater pool, we all swam straight for the giant waterfall to see if we could get up onto the ledge underneath it. This wasn’t easy as the sheer force of the waterfall was repelling us backwards. It was like swimming against a really strong rip! Adam was the first to get inside the waterfall and we only knew he was there because of his hand coming out to haul others inside there with him. The waterfall completely obscured our view of him otherwise and it was so noisy too. Without Adam’s help I don’t think any of us would have got to experience what we did. Adam, a.k.a “King of the Falls” was a legend, pulling in every one of us so we too could experience the incredible feeling of having such a large velocity of water come down on your head. It was invigorating to say the least! Toby did manage to get himself up once his confidence had built but he also managed to elicit a whistle blow from the lifeguards when he attempted to stand up on the ledge! The funny thing was, everyone on the side of the pool heard the whistle but Tobes, who was deep in the waterfall and couldn’t hear a thing, was completely oblivious!
Next on our agenda was a trip to Aloha Stadium where we had already purchased tickets to see a College gridiron match between the local favourites the Hawai’i University Warriors and the obvious underdogs the Nevada Wolf Pack. Honolulu’s freeways had us in a bit of a loop trying to find the stadium and then trying to park. We were the recipients of some generosity from some very kind gentlemen who sympathised with our plight and let us park in the military’s designated parking spots. Phew! We made it in, just in time to hear the blow of the conch shell that heralded the start of play.
There’s a tradition in Hawaii that people have barbeques and picnics in the stadium carpark, right next to their cars! The car parking spots are set far enough apart to allow people to set up chairs, marquees, barbies and eskies and they all sit around their car, eating and drinking until the game starts. It even stated on our tickets that it was a common practice, allowed and encouraged. Many picnics and barbies were still in full swing after the game ended too and apparently some fans don’t even go into the game, they just listen from the carpark!
We had really good seats and while the stadium wasn’t chock-o-block there was a healthy crowd there, probably around 40,000. For a College game, there seemed to be no less enthusiasm or celebration than the NFL game we went to a couple of years ago. There is always so much to look at besides the actual game! The after-touchdown celebrations are SO over-the-top it’s hilarious! Play actually stops for about 10 minutes while the celebrations ensue! Hawai’i was the first to score and we all nearly had a heart-attack when a booming canon was blasted! This was closely followed by the 200 strong brass band belting out a tune, to which the cheerleeders immediately jumped into routine, waving their pom-poms with vigour! Then a team of guys and girls on the sideline also began to entertain us. The guys lifted the girls high into the air, throwing them up on occasion and balancing them on one leg high above the field! The band, mostly brass instruments but also with a big drum and cymbal contingent, were fantastic! The two rows of (what we originally thought were tubas but Adam educated us to now know were sousaphones) were turning from side to side in unison while the trumpets, trombones and saxophones were alternately lifting their instruments up and down enthusiastically! They played rousing versions of the Rocky theme song, Fall Out Boy’s “Thanks For the Memories” and my personal favourite, the theme from Hawaii Five-O! They were awesome! The Hawai’i team colour is green so lots of people in the crowd had brought along cheap streamers in the form of long bits of grass and palm leaves to wave!
So all this went on each time Hawai’i scored a touchdown or a goal! Unfortunately, both for the crowd who were revelling in the spectacle and for the team who would’ve liked to win, the touchdowns were few and far between and the lads from Las Vegas were just too strong for the not-so-mighty Hawaiian Warriors. The funny thing was, when Nevada scored, there was NOTHING. Dead silence! Their little team of 6 cheerleaders and their “Wolfie” mascot danced around a little on one corner of the sideline but if you blinked you missed it. You could’ve counted the Nevada supporters on two hands. Oh well, the lack of crowd support didn’t hinder their play any and they won by a hefty 69 – 24! In Sam’s words “it was a good old-fashioned carve up!”
The quarter and half time celebrations also deserve a mention. A team of university students came out each break and did some push-ups under the goal posts while flag-bearers ran around the field with their flags and t-shirts were blasted from a canon into the crowd. The band came down from the stand and commanded the whole playing surface with precision marching moves and more tunes. There were gorgeous little hula girls, acrobats, a children’s choir, dancers and gymnasts with surfboards, baton twirlers and sumo suits! What a show! Another thing that had us all laughing was the use of the big screen during the match. From time to time they had “Kiss Cam” and the two people on screen had to turn and kiss each other. One funny elderly Hawaiian couple took quite a while to catch on but when they finally did and turned to peck each other on the lips, the cheering from the crowd was raucous! There was also “Dance Cam” and a karaoke style sing-a-long to John Denver’s “Rocky Mountain High”! We watched all this while enjoying our “Chilli War Dogs” (a foot long bratwurst sausage hot dog covered in Mexican chilli beans) and “Teri Burgers” (the smallest hamburgers you’ve ever seen, with a teriyaki meat pattie and nothing else, not even a scrap of lettuce). It was so much fun! Keeping all that in mind, it seems unbelievable to fathom that when we asked Maisy how she enjoyed it she admitted sheepishly “oh, it was a bit boring”! Thankfully we’d brought her colouring book!
