The Lyon Arboretum is the only university botanical garden located in a tropical rainforest in the U.S. I visited this beautiful botanical garden yesterday for the first time. I went with a friend to explore and take photos.

The Lyon Arboretum is located at the very end of Manoa Road. It was quite an adventure getting there. As you reach the end of the road, your driving skills will be tested as you come upon a few very narrow hairpin turns. The signs warning of falling branches also made me a little nervous. Fortunately my car made it there fully intact.

Once you arrive, you are greeted with this magnificent view.

There are a few trails on the lower grounds and many more trails that go up into the mountains. We decided to stay on the lower grounds. The first trail we took led us to the Hawaiian Ethnobotanical Garden. Not far from the start of this trail, we noticed a guy hanging from a rope climbing a huge tree.

We walked over to investigate. When we reached the small group of people nearby, I heard my name called. I was shocked! The person turned out to be someone I taught with at my former school. We hadn’t seen each other for years. Small world!

View of taro plants by the tree climbing activity:

More photos from our walk:

We returned to the main office area to explore another path. Here are two more views from the the main office area.

We were fortunate to be near the main office area when the first rain shower hit. I took this photo just after the rain stopped.

The next path we took was the Lower Lawns path. This was located to the right of the main office. I loved this group of palm trees.

This path also led us to a very cool water lily pond.

After spending quite a bit of time taking photos of the water lilies and hanging out under the gazebo during the rain showers, we decided it was time to leave.

We continued on the path heading towards the parking lot. As we walked by this pretty pink flower, I spotted something hanging on the side of the flower. It turned out to be a green gecko with blue and red spots.

He (or she) was so cute. As we watched this gecko crawl along the leaves, we realized that there was a whole family of geckos hanging out in this plant. This gecko was pretty curious and came right up to me as I took more photos. The gecko started out by peeking his/her head over a leaf and eventually even posed for me. This is one of my favorites…

This group of plants was located at the very end of the path right near the parking lot entrance.