Painted Church and Peace Garden

Home now, but a few tales to tell yet. It's snowing and 18º in St Paul, but the memories of Hawaii are fresh and warm. A few more photos to share before the photos revert to tundra. Stay tuned.

Nearing the end of our time on the big island, we went exploring. We're more forest people than beach people, and we like looking for out of the way gems. And we had a car. We drove south from Kona, looking for a "Painted Church" mentioned in the guide book. We'd seen signs for it before and thought we could find it. There was also a Peace Garden that sounded to be of interest.

The Painted Church is on a rise of the slope of Hawaii near the town of Captain Cook. It contains large beautiful wall paintings depicting Bible scenes done years ago by the priest of the church. It also has a primitive, in a way, uphill version of the stations of the cross, done in unfinished poles and inscribed with each station's position in Jesus' last days.

There is a white painted statue of Jesus at the top of the hill where the stations stand. NCW for scale.

NCW stands above the stations of the cross at the Painted Church. The view down toward the ocean was beautiful. The inside of the church was nice, too, with Biblical paintings beginning to fade in the tropical heat and humidity.

About a mile down the curving road along the ocean we found the other place we were searching for. Paleaku Peace Garden is a private botanical garden and a tribute to the world religions and, of course, peace. There are displays and statues representing the world's great religions. Plus there is a set of flowering shrubs representing the Milky Way galaxy, designed and executed by a well known astronomer.

A slightly blurred view of the main part of the garden looking towards the big ocean. The blur was caused by some humidity on the lens, but I like the photo and the scene well enough to post it anyhow.

A monument to Our Lady of Guadalupe in the Christian part of the Peace Garden. There were monuments to Buddhism, Islam, Hinduism and Judaism as well.

I couldn't pass up an addition to my sometime collection of bench photos. We sat on this one in the Peace Garden in the shade of a large tropical tree. Banyan, perhaps.

By this time my camera's battery began to bog and the rest of the trip went unrecorded. It was a good day and one that was unexpected even the day before it occurred.