The old sugar railway

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The old sugar railway line near Mahukona in Hawaii

North of Mahukona, there’s a trail that follows the old sugar railway for a couple of miles. This photo shows one of the railway’s embankments, but there’s a bit more to it than that.

This embankment is not the original line. That can be seen to the left of it, the flat dry grass area, following the contours of the land. Traveling this route was very slow, so its course was smoothed out with embankments and cuttings. The original line’s course is to the right of the cutting. These changes cut the time it took to travel the line though it was never a high speed trip!

Mangoes down

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Fallen mangoes in Hawaii
A mango tree in Hawaii

We’ve had some wild weather here this past week or so, the kind of wet and windy days that make even me feel sorry for people here on holiday. That’s not why people come to Hawaii.

On one of those days, the winds were so fierce, they stripped one side of the giant mango tree in the yard of all its fruit, together with several branches, and bounty of leaves. These photos show how the yard looked when I got home! The bulk of the fruit was still rock hard so that even the pigs didn’t venture out for them!

Fallen leaves in Hawaii

Foster Botanical Garden

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A Kapok tree, planted by Dr. Hillebrand and native to tropical America.

When I was in Honolulu, in December, I had a few hours to kill and decided to visit Foster Botanical Garden, which is not far from the downtown area. It’s one of five gardens that make up the Honolulu Botanical Gardens.

The garden dates back to 1853 when it was started by William Hillebrand, a German physician and botanist. It was sold in 1884 to Thomas and Mary Foster who continued to develop the garden. When Mary Foster died in 1930 she left the garden and her house to the city of Honolulu on the condition that the garden be maintained as a public park.

A Quipo Tree.
Rainbow Eucalyptus.
A bee on a Scarlet Powder-puff flower.

The garden is best known for its trees, some of which were planted by Dr. Hillebrand, and includes 21 trees designated ‘exceptional’ by City Ordinance. Despite it being a rather dreary day, walking through the trees and checking out the other plantings was well worth the visit.

Garden greenery.
A Silk Tree trunk.
A Wild Mussaenda flower with conspicuous bracts.

More information about Foster Botanical Garden here. Posted for Terri’s Flower Hour. See more responses here.

The Numbers Game #111

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A praying mantis showing the patterns on its wings
A Praying Mantis with wings unfurled.

The idea of The Numbers Game is to enter a number into the search bar of your computer and then post a selection of the photos that turn up. This week’s number is 233. Captions are on the photos. You can see more responses here.

A school of fish dart through white water
Fish surfing.
Surf breaks at Mahukona in North Kohala.
High surf at Mahukona.
“Or we’ll put you in there to explain why you were doing that!’
A Phalaenopsis corno-cervi orchid.
A close up of taillight of a Honda Metropolitanscooter
The tail light of a Honda Metropolitan scooter.
A Green Turtle at the beach.

Amethysts

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This week’s Sunday Stills color challenge is ‘Amethyst.’ See more responses here. Just a couple from me this week. The top photos is a 1955 Chevrolet Bel Air auto looking very clean and shiny, though a closer look shows a few signs of age. I know the feeling!

In the second photo, we are amethyst even if the look of this sign in a window doesn’t exactly lure one in.