Returned to the Big island to visit family and revisit the place I purposed to my wife for our ten year anniversary. Which was at Akaka falls. When we arrived we started looking to plan to visit some new places on the island not ventured by us and in between visits with family and I found the big island zip line tour and it looked like it went over Akaka falls. Told the love of my life this would be freaking awesome to do for our tenth and she flat out said “NO WAY”! we are in our mid 40’s and I was not going to give up that easy; this coming from a gal that can shoot almost any hunting gun, hunt, fish, fillet fish better than me, ride a dirt bike or quad and camp in the middle of now where and not complain when she has to; well you know in the woods. So the family and me worked on her for nearly a week and would you know it the night before our late night flight out she gave in. So a check of the weather for the next day (always give weather checks no more than24-38 hours for accuracy; just trust me I would not like to do this in the rain) and all was good and the tour was booked. We arrived in Honomu for the am tour a little early and was told the guides where out doing there inspection which eased the spouses nerves. When they pulled up six guys got out of this van and headed over for a meet and greet. When they found out we had never been zip lining before the fun kicked up a notch for we where the fresh meat and they just love screamers, this is when we found out the line did not go over Akaka falls but over two falls up stream of Akaka falls for which not many people knew of these falls are there at least none in my family did. Most where local guys and the others were from Maui supervising this local crew, this put the missus back in panic mode and they picked up on it right away and explained that these lines are the newest but have been up for some time and that everyone has plenty of training. They even have taken the local town out on the lines for free, old and young as a meet and greet. So she calmed back down. A few more joke and laughs then we geared up and the guys made every effort to get you comfortable and drove up to the first line which was fun in itself cause it was bumpy and bouncy, a 4X4 wheelers dream. Now this first line is short, just enough to get you used to the gear and comfortable as they explain how safe you’ll be,though they really shouldn’t count this as a line! The second line was through a banana grove and if you’re a good monkey they give you one to eat, the guides felt like they had been good monkeys because they all had bananas in there mouth’s! “NO PUN INTENDED” The next line I do not remember because the last two lines where freaking awesome, you start with learning how to turn yourself left and right so you can turn to see a water fall, then when you get ready to go all you see is this view of the line running through this cut out in over growth, when you get through that growth and BAM big drop off and your flying over this valley and a sweet view of a water fall, “yep” the wife screamed all the way. Now that was very cool till you see the last line and WOW it run what I know is a gulch, you drive through gulches to get to Hilo and this was a freaking gulch three quarters of a mile wide gulch and I dare you not to howl or scream, this was fireworks, you know ewwww, awww then grand finally and your cheering it on! Like take me back I wont to do it again awesome, like next time take my money and just let me do the last line twice kind of awesome!!! And would you guess the love of my life is looking up zip lines on the net when we got home; JUST GO FIGURE, “Hun we can go here or there it’s not too far” I tell her I’m up for it but not sure they would compare to the last zipline in Honomu! If you go, trust it’s worth the money and give to the local economy and have some PU PU’s(food) in town!
Also, please give Damian, Dave, Luke, Andy, Sanji and Wheeler a big Mahalo, it was Pili lani!