Koko Head Botanical Gardens

6:38:00 PM

Kids climbing one of the largest Plumeria trees I've ever seen

One of the things I love about hiking is seeing the beauty and splendor of God’s creation. Today we visited Koko head Crater Botanical Gardens and every plant was a marvel to behold. The different shapes, colors, sizes, and designs always amaze me. What is cool about this garden is it is all dry desert plants. We live on a tropical island but we can still see and appreciate cacti and strange looking plant life from Madagascar. It’s so interesting to so see these strange almost alien looking plants. I can see where Dr. Seuss got his inspiration from.

Dr. Suess looking tree

It looks like there's a door in the tree

The Gang posing in front of these cool cacti

Trees from Madagascar

Some of the trees have some serious thorns all over their trunks and branches. The thorns are similar to cacti thorns but way more dangerous. If you tried to hug one of these trees you would get seriously hurt. I guess in a desert this is a way for the trees to survive and keep animals from eating them.

This looks like a normal tree but it's trunk and branches are covered in sharp thorns

Close up of the thorns on the trunk of the tree

My son enthralled by the thorny branches

When people tell me that there is no God and that the world and life was created by accident I can only shake my head. Look around at the amazing plant and animal life. Every one of these plants and animals is wonderful and deeply complex. Plants, animals, humans, and our eco system are all interconnected. If you get rid of one, it wreaks havoc with the design and things do not run smoothly.

If for some reason a native plant or animal becomes extinct from the area, there is a chain reaction that involves all the other animals and plants in the area. I saw this cool documentary about wolves and how they used to live in Yellowstone National park and when they were hunted to almost extinction there was a huge effect on the land and animals in the area. When the wolves were re-introduced to the area the water and trees all started coming back. This is a great example of how complex and wonderful this world is and how much thought went into its design. Here is the video in case you want to watch it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysa5OBhXz-Q

Cool looking cacti

Another example is our bodies. The human body was designed to be the perfect machine. We breath in air or oxygen (that comes from trees) that goes into our lungs and somehow we subtract that oxygen from the air for our body to use. Our heart then pumps blood that flows through veins in the body delivering oxygen and other nutrients to different parts of our body. Then we exhale carbon dioxide which trees use to live. Humans and trees are basically coexisting, supporting one another. It is an amazing design and not something that evolved by accident. There are too many intricacies for any of this to be an accident and with all great designs there must be a designer. Anyway, just some food for thought. With that I will leave you with some of the pictures from our hike. Enjoy!