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!
This Humpback Whale encounter was probably the highlight of the year (here).
This week’s Sunday Stills challenge theme is ‘Year in review.’ See more responses here. As usual, I’ve picked a photo from each of the past 12 months and included a link to the original post.
Sunrise over Mauna Kea (here).A Monarch Butterfly on a leaf (here).A Manta Ray passes by (here).One of the many episodes of the current eruption at Kilauea (here).A Japanese White-eye on Octopus Tree flowers (here).The interior of the Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Hawi (here).A male Sonoran Carpenter Bee (here).A waiting room at the Hilo Benioff Medical Center (here).Jumping into the ocean at Coconut Island, Hilo (here).
A kerfuffle in the corral at Paniolo Adventures (here).
Sunday Stills Monthly Color Challenge is ‘Festive Colors of Red and Green.’ See more responses here.
A couple of weeks ago, I hiked a section of the Pu’u O’o Trail, off Saddle Road. It’s one of my favorites on the island. The trail mixes old lava flows from Mauna Loa eruptions with kipukas, areas of old growth trees bypassed by those flows. These kipukas are home to several native bird species.
On this day, approaching a kipuka, the bird calls got noticeably louder. Clearly a lot of birds were active. I chastised myself for, once again, not remembering to familiarize myself with the different calls so I could identify the birds I was hearing. But I needn’t have worried. They were visible too, if prone to move about a bit too rapidly for my convenience!
This bird is the I’iwi and I saw more of them on this day than any other time I’ve been up here. I’iwis feed on several kinds of native flowers, many of which are found in these kipukas. The tangle of branches and the flighty birds made for tricky photography, but I was happy to get a few good shots out of the many that I took.
I know these aren’t Christmassy photos, but I was feeling pretty festive by the end of the hike!
The old Kohala sugar railroad is now a trail, at least for a mile or two north of Mahukona. It’s very curvy with many cuttings and embankments. In the early morning, the walk is a succession of changes from shade to sun and back again.
Posted for Becky’s Squares: Shadows. See more responses here.
Graham's Island 