Review: Gunstock Ranch's Private Off-Road Planter's Experience

Hold on to your hats! For Gunstock Ranch’s Private Off-Road Planter’s Experience, visitors traverse unpaved trails with twists and turns, inclines and declines and bumps all along the way. The sturdy, peppy UTVs used for this tour are covered, but other than that, they’re open to the elements, so expect them to stir up dust and maybe mud if it drizzles. (Gunstock is a working Oahu cattle ranch, after all.)

It’s an exhilarating, scenic outing that’s also a boon for Mother Earth, as participants take part in a native tree-planting ceremony.

I recommend arriving at least 30 minutes before the tour to visit the friendly goats, rabbits, sheep, a cow and parakeets in the petting zoo near the check-in stand. Feed can be purchased for $1 per bag, and guests are welcome to enter the animals’ pen and give them a snack.

Be on the lookout for a brown-and-white goat named Lilikoi who, at 2 years old, is quite the athlete. Whenever the inclination strikes, she’ll jump over the pen’s 4-foot fence just to roam around. (Ranch hands have grown accustomed to her antics and patiently escort her back home.)

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Adjacent to the petting zoo is the nursery, where my boyfriend, Walter, and I chose the sapling we would plant in support of Gunstock’s partnership with the Hawaiian Legacy Reforestation Initiative (HLRI). The nonprofit's goal is to restore and preserve native and endemic Hawaiian forests, which, in turn, can recharge watersheds, sequester carbon from the atmosphere and create a protected environment for native flora and fauna.

We selected a milo, which I later learned had multiple uses in ancient Hawaii. Its wood was carved into dishes, bowls, platters, canoe paddles and jewelry for royalty. Cordage was made from its bark; its seeds were strung into lei; and oil, gum and a yellow-green dye were obtained from its fruit. Milo’s roots, bark and fruit yielded medicine to treat wounds, dysentery, cholera and hemorrhoids. When cooked, its young leaves were a tasty vegetable.

Excited, we hopped into a UTV with our guide, Ocean, at the wheel and our sapling safely secured in the back. (Note: Guests can opt to ride horses for this tour instead of UTVs.) She drove us to a site where a half-dozen other milo trees were soaking in the morning sun. After Walter carefully removed our tree from its pot and placed it into a pre-dug hole, we cupped our hands over it. Ocean poured water from an ipu (gourd) over our hands and onto our tree.

“Hawaiians believe everyone and everything has mana, or spiritual energy,” she said. “When the water goes through your hands, you’re giving your mana — a part of yourself — to your tree.”

We were happy to know it was now part of what will one day be a thriving forest. Ocean told us HLRI would care for it and that we would be able to track its growth via drone imagery accessible with its RFID (radio frequency identification) tag. Close to 20,000 native trees have been planted on 82 acres at Gunstock since it launched Planter’s Experiences in 2018.

Back in the UTV, Ocean explained the ranch was founded in 1973 by the late Dr. Max Smith, who served as Hawaii’s state veterinarian for 30 years. Prior to that, its 900 acres were part of a sugar plantation. Material was needed to build roads, so plantation workers dug and stockpiled sandstone in one section of the property. When the plantation closed, that stopped, and the rock quarry was abandoned.

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Of note there today is a cabin surrounded by banyan, ironwood, macaranga and koa haole trees. It was built in five days in 2019 for a shoot-out scene for the rebooted “Hawaii Five-O” television series. Tour highlights also included a close-up look at a two-man World War II observation bunker and a stop at a cave that Ocean said was formed underwater eons ago.

“When this land was part of the sugar plantation, workers would hang out in the cave because it’s a few degrees cooler than its surroundings,” she said. “After the Smith family acquired the property, they found glass bottles all over the cave. We’ve been told plantation workers made moonshine out of cane juice and drank it here.”

After zipping through a big field, we came across a herd of cattle enjoying the shade provided by a thick stand of Christmas berry trees. Not shy at all, they stuck their heads into the UTV to munch on the handfuls of alfalfa cubes we offered them.

There were several breaks during our tour so we could stretch our legs and enjoy breathtaking sights, as well as view strawberry guava (a summer treat) flourishing in the wild.

Beneath a towering banyan, we lunched on turkey sandwiches, chips, fresh fruit, juice, candy and cookies while admiring a panorama that encompassed the ocean, the Koolau Range and much of Gunstock’s land.

“On a clear day, the islands of Maui and Molokai are directly in front of us,” Ocean said. “The views are incredible — but what I love most about this tour is that it goes a step beyond that. Visitors not only see Hawaii’s beauty; they contribute to it by planting a native tree.”

Even better, because the tour is private, it can be customized.

“If participants are dedicating their tree to a loved one, they can spend more time at the planting site,” Ocean said. “Some people want to hang out with the cows, and others want to focus on local history and ranch life. We’re happy to tailor the experience any way they want, just for them.”