Limahuli on Thursday and Stone Dam walk on Friday

 

It was overcast and raining on Thursday when we visited Limahuli, part of the National Tropical Botanical Gardens.  We all brought light ponchos with us, but forgot to put them in so we bought three more at the visitor center. Still, it had several downpours and we were pretty soaked by the end of the walk, but it was worth it as always.  Laura enjoyed it immensely.  

Laura particularly enjoyed the one-lane bridges to Hanalei and beyond, particularly one where a bay horse hung out, his head and neck stretched over the highway guard rail as he hoped slowly passing vehicles might pause and give him a treat. 

After our walk, we lunched in Hanalei at the burger place mid-town on the corner--always good. On the way back, we stopped at the overlook for the wildlife refuge for another beautiful view:

The next day, Lizzie was determined to find the walk that she and Helen had done (without me as I had the flu) two trips ago, and Laura was pretty sure she had located the trailhead.  It turned into a 5+ mile round trip, but it was a beautiful walk, if hot--we could have used the rain this day! 

The trail wound through a planted forest; the start is shown above.  We noticed monarch butterflies--some quite pale or dingy-winged, but some very bright.  The caterpillar I spied (below) also seemed smaller, but perhaps it is a juvenile.

I couldn't photograph one of the butterflies, but Laura captured it very well:

Once we reached the stone dam, I sat at the overlook and enjoyed the beauty of the flowers around me and the distant view to the dam, where I photographed Laura returning.

It made me wonder whether there fish in Hawaii's streams.  Apparently, rainbow trout were introduced once, but they had to be be repeatedly added as they could not reproduce in the warm water. Endemic freshwater fish of Hawaii include striped mullet and Hawaiian flagtail.