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Simon Phipps's personal commentary

The Frog Chorus [PhotoTravel]

Being an adept with an atlas, I spotted that Hawai'i was mid-way between Sydney in Australia and San Jose in California. I had intended a long weekend there but got stuck in Sydney with a nasty illness [aside: what irony! I survived Bombay, Delhi, Bangkok, Singapore, Taipei and Hong Kong and then got sick at the end of my week in Sydney!] and in the end left on Sunday morning. Crossing the date-line meant I got to Hawai'i on Saturday night so at least I got some time there. I stayed on Big Island in a perfect B&B in the town of Volcano (the Volcano Inn - their front door is shown to the left), right at the entrance to the Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park.

More about the volcano tomorrow I expect, but the highlight of the entire trip for me was going to the Lava Tree State Park in Puna, an enclave of rich jungle on the south-east corner of the island. It has some fascinating (if a little phallic) tree casts and a great name for the double entendre detector but the serendipity of the visit was the sounds. As dusk fell, the sound of birds singing started to appear - only there were no birds. The singing increased to choral proportions and was coming from all around me in the jungle undergrowth, but nothing was flying anywhere. Gradually it dawned on me that this was the sound of tree frogs. It was totally captivating; I stood being consumed by insects for maybe half an hour listening to a Philip Glass oratorio sung by tree frogs. Sadly they are not welcome - turns out they are introduced and considered a pest - but then everything in Hawai'i arrived at some point, even the state bird (the Nene) is descended from canada geese that outstayed their welcome, so maybe one day they will be valued.

posted at 9:28 AM (UK) | |