48 MILES IN 8 HOURS, PART II

Hawaii Tropical Botanical Gardens, Part II:

Jim and I made it to the bottom of the botanical gardens and took advantage of the beautiful ocean front benches for a bit of a rest.



Continuing on up the path we came across this tiki god in the jungle.


And, a little farther along, an aviary with Macaws.

I can't even begin to describe the stunning greenery which abounds in these gardens.


These three are versions of the same thing, but look at the variety:


Rose Grape, from the Philippines.


Near the aviary is a large, beautiful koi pond, fully stocked.

Who knew there could be such a rich palette of purples in nature?


This one, Persian Shield, from Burma, is my favorite.


On our way back out of the gardens, we spotted this oddball, called the Cannonball Tree.

When we emerged from the gardens I felt like we had been deep in a primordial Garden of Eden (without the serpent) crossed with Jurassic Park (without the dinosaurs) and I was tired but quite refreshed. By this time we were really hungry so we continued on our 4 mile scenic route and found a roadside cafe where we had Ono wraps (my personal goal is to eat Ono at least once a day) and passion fruit smoothies.

Finally, over four hours after starting our 4 mile scenic detour, we arrived back on Highway 19 and continued northbound. We took every scenic turn off and finally arrived at the Akaka waterfall.

It looked like there was a nice trail to the falls but we had worn out our feet in the botanical gardens so just admired them from afar.

8 hours and 48 miles later, we finally turned back toward Hilo after finding this lovely ocean-front park.

Next, we walk on lava.

Audrey