Laupahoehoe
March, 2012
Click on any image for a bigger view
Contact me (garya at this domain) if you want the really good image
We spent our last night on the big island
camped in the county park at Laupahoehoe.
Laupahoehoe is located at the mouth of a valley,
on the alluvial fan of outwash from the stream.
Like most alluvial fans by the ocean,
it is a low-lying piece of ground,
a large flat area about five feet above sea level.
It was wet but not raining when we arrived.
We found a spot close to the water and pitched the tent.
Since there was still several hours of daylight left,
we decided to go see
Akaka Falls.
By the time we returned, the rain had resumed.
As with all of the county parks we stayed at,
this one had a pavilion with picnic tables,
so we used it as a shelter while we cooked dinner.
On April 1, 1946,
a tsunami struck,
destroying the school and killing twenty students and four teachers.
The tsunami was triggered by an earthquake in the Aleutian Islands of Alaska.
There is an interpretive sign
with clippings from newspapers of the time
and stories of the ordeal and the survivors;
there is also a monument to those who lost their lives.
 |
| Laupahoehoe Tidal Wave Monument |
There is a huge Banyan tree in the schoolyard at Laupahoehoe.
I'm not sure if I have seen these trees before this trip or not,
but in any case I learned more about them.
The tree starts as a single trunk,
but then sends runners down from its branches.
When those runners reach the ground, they take root;
at which point they look like lianas, but are now really another trunk of the same tree.
I don't know how old the Banyan tree at the Laupahoehoe school is,
but Dona and I paced it off and its canopy covers somewhere around 200 yards .
That's right, this one tree spreads its branches to cover an area two-thirds the size of an American football field.
What a thing to have in a schoolyard!
What a thing to have in my own yard, I wish.
Every time I think of it I picture it overflowing with kids at recess --
kids climbing, kids swinging, kids studying, kids running around the trunk, kids swinging...
every school should have one; it should be required...
 |
| Banyan Tree |
 |
 |
| Find Dona by the Banyan Tree |
Find Gary in the Banyan Tree |
On a more ordinary level,
there were a few birds flying around that we tried to identify.
We had Japanese White-eyes, Northern Cardinals, and this Zebra Dove.
 |
| Zebra Dove |
From Laupahoehoe we took in
Akaka Falls ;
then we headed to the
Tropical Hawaiian Botanical Garden
on our way back to the airport.
