Day 6 - Spiders and Jurassic Figs

Beach at Allerton Gardens. Isolated. Peopleless. Beautiful.
I lied.  This is the best beach on Kauai. 

Today was unexpected. I ended up taking a guided tour of the Allerton and McBryde Botanical Gardens - the waterfall tour. They both part of the National Botanical Gardens. All I can say is wow. The best parts were the greenhouses and the chat given by the head gardener and greenhouse keeper. Apparently, there are three types of plants:

• 3W - those that are indigenous or brought over ages ago by waves, wind or wings
• Canoe plants - those that were brought over by the original polynesians 
• Modern introductions - those that have been brought over since

There is a movement underway to preserve as many of the 3W as they can. Many are endangered. Some down to 1 plant left in the wild. As the botanist said, sad but exciting work.
You can volunteer (even visitors) to work in the garden/greenhouses. If I'm ever back this way I'll make an effort to spend a few days here helping out!

Note to self: Bring Eric. His mind will be blown.




Today's highlights:

• Huge ass jewelled spider (and I mean HUGE) at the McBride greenhouse. The body was at least big as my thumb. All included the size of a child fist. A fellow touree said they were harmless and didn't bite. I reserve judgement. An arachnid that big can't not be good. Menacing.
• Garden cats (there were two of them) chasing geckos. Sooooo cute. Apparently cats are stealthy,  can move like lightening, and like me (they know I give good ear scratchies) :-) NOTE to self: should get Coco on the gecko excersize program to trim her down like these tropical cats.
• Gargantuan fig trees (transplanted from Australia) - the redwood of figs. Introduced to the garden around 50 years ago. Renowned for being featured on Jurassic Park. 
• Poke (Spicy raw ahi goodness) at the Dolphin (aka Fish Market) in Poipu

Note to self: Avoid the Living Foods Market (Poipu's version of Meinharts). Everything looks yummy, is supposed to be natural and good for you, and cost the moon. 3 out of 4 salads tried were a bust. The only one that was edible was the cubed watermelon with lime. I should have known better. 

Really really really big spider.
My photo makes it look small.

Ginger plant. Beautiful. This is a modern introduction.
Not sure if it is edible.

Huge fig tree. Apparently like really dry areas.
In the Hawaiian climate, it grows big but doesn't produce
edible fruit because it's too watery.

Yummy Poke.