Kauai (part 2)

Today it's all about flowers and our trip to ferngrotto.

Hawaii harbours the most fantastic flowering plants, well, in least imho. I don't know the name of this shrub/tree but it's beautiful in its simplicity...I think. We took a ride with the Kauai plantation train, that's where I took this and the next pics.

This is the map of the ride, you are passing a lot of different fruits and veggies that are cultivated on Kauai today.

Now look at this one, the fruit is growing right out of the trunk:

We stopped so you can feed pigs and goats and we could see piglets, only a couple of days old. Cute, aren't they?

Since 1946 the Smith family brought tourists up the Waimea river to Fern grotto. They started with a rowing boat but today it's a very touristy amusement boat. Nevertheless we enjoyed our trip up the Waimea river, wich is the only navigable river in all Hawaii. This is the pier from which we left for our tour to Fern Grotto.

The hurricane Iniki devastated the Fern Grotto in 1992 and the fern has still to reclaim all of the grotto:

I think it's still beautiful and a lot of wedding ceremonies are held here in fromt of the lava grotto.

Since there was no hiding in front of the grotto we had to get over and done with the musical outpourings of the Smith family:

On our way back we met more of Hawaii's beautiful flora. I wish I had payed more attention in my botany modules, because I hardly know these wonderful flowers.

And more:

and bananas:

and somtething yellow:

Kauai is also called the garden island, and justifiably so.