Moanalua Gardens ... June 8,
2017
Our last day in Hawaii was Thursday,
June 8. Kristin didn't have to work and we didn't
fly out until 10:15 PM so we spent the morning at
Moanalua Gardens. This facility is quite close to
their home but Kris had never been there.
The gardens are "supported by the
Hitachi Group". Hitachi is a Japanese corporation.
The area features many trees, plants and flowers.
The Monkey Pod Tree is featured, in particular one huge
tree near the center of the gardens referred to as the
Hitachi Tree. A picture of this is the logo of the
Hitachi Group. These trees are interesting in that
they are much broader than they are tall. They
grow to about 25 meters tall, or about 82 feet but can
spread out 40 meters, over 130 feet. The trunks
are enormous, up to 7 meters, about 23 feet around.
Standing under them in the Hawaii sunshine is
refreshing. The temperature is several degrees
cooler under it. The leaves of these trees spread
open at sunrise and close in the afternoon, providing
additional shade.
Also located here is the summer cottage
of King Kamehameha V, built in the 1850s.
The is a Koi pond here filled with fish,
ducks and other birds. One of us commented that
the Koi look like carp. As it turns out, they are
a domesticated carp. The gift shop sold pellets to
feed the fish. We soon noticed that a kingfisher
was attracted to the areas where the pellets were
thrown. This guy was hungry! While we were
there, he dove in many times and caught at least three
small ones. After the appetizer course, he went
after something bigger. He caught one that was
almost as big as he was. When he put it down on
the bridge to get a better bite on it, the fish managed
to flop back into the pond. He later caught a
couple that weren't quite as large and swallowed them
whole. His dining habits were worse than some
people we know! We took quite a few pictures of
him on sport, or burst, mode showing him diving in and
getting back out with his dinner.
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