Na'Aina Kai Botanical Gardens & North Shore Beaches

What are all these clouds this morning! And rain! Well, they certainly need it around here and the showers are short and over almost before you can get the umbrella out so not so bad. We're off to the Na'Aina Kai Botanical Gardens and Sculpture Park this morning. Thanks to our Duke Gardens membership, we got free admission as well as a guided tour. Gotta Love it! The sculptures were wonderful and all throughout the gardens. You'd come around a corner and there would be another one.

The Paperboy.

The Classics

and lots of orchids growing on trees and in the gardens. They are in a severe drought now and have lost many of their plants in the past year as they have no water supply per se....they count on the rain. And, we are late in the year for a lot of the plants so while there were many trees in bloom, the majority of the color was coming from orchids and bromiliads.

and of course our favorites....the birds.

This was one of our favorite bronzes...picking apples. Two little kids on a horse and one standing up to pluck that apple from the tree.

and more orchids!

and into the Japanese Garden...

the Tea House and zig-zag bridge...

and the garden and sculpture behind the tea house.

It was a delightful 2 1/2 hour tour and the rain didn't begin until we drove out of the parking lot. Headed back to the room for lunch and a little rest and relaxation and then decided to head up the North Shore and visit the different beaches along the way.

Kahalahala Beach

Lumaha'i BeachBali Hi of South Pacific Fame

and this Monk Seal was waiting to greet us at Tunnels Beach.

We spent about an hour at Tunnels during which we had a couple of pretty good rain showers. Headed back to the condo for dinner and stopped it all mid stream when we looked out the window and decided to head down the road for sunset.

Very nice considering all the clouds!

Good night all. Hope you had a great day!