This is another of our favourite islands which we’ve been to several times before…there’s lots to see and do on this island. We’ve previously visited, the Botanical gardens which are fabulous, Marigot Bay beach and view point- this is where Dr Doolittle and The Pirates of the Caribbean were partly filmed, the volcanoes at Soufriere, and had magnificent views of Les Pitons. We’ve also taken a catamaran from Castries to Soufriere and swam on one of the numerous beaches……So this time we walked off the the ship and took a local taxi to Rodney Bay, Reduit Beach costing us $20 per person for a return trip. The taxi pulled up at some gates and a helpful man called Kennedy arranged the time the taxi would pick us up and then escorted us to the beach. He guided us to 2 sun-loungers and put up a parasol for us. The cost of the loungers and parasol was $30. We quickly went into the sea to cool off….it was glorious. Although it shelved quite steeply the sand wasn’t shifting under your feet all the time and it was relatively easy to get in and out. We spent over an hour and a half just bobbing around and swimming…it was very warm.
Kennedy was a good guy who took excellent care of us. When the wind came up he tied our parasol to the sun-lounger, he regularly offered to get us drinks and altogether it was a very pleasurable morning.
When it was time to go we wandered back to the white gates at the road. Kennedy met us there very prepared with a soft brush which he kindly used to get the sand off our feet…what a great idea…. We learnt a little about him…we could have booked him direct and he would have used his taxi to pick us up from the ship and transfer us to the beach and back. He offers a good price for this along with the loungers and parasol….we shall know for next time…we can recommend him, he seemed a kind caring guy…. His full name is Kennedy Mervin Joseph…he has a great motto “ Don’t worry be Happy” and he certainly took the worry out of our day, even phoning the taxi to find out why it was 5 minutes late.
Back on the ship we showered and fell asleep…we’re not used to the amount of exercise our swimming excursions are giving us, that and along with the extra steps …to and from the restaurant ..can be quite exhausting…!!!!
We both woke up early and watched from our bed, whilst drinking coffee, as we pulled alongside the pier in St Kitts…….what a decedent life style we live 🤣. It was a grey day with the cloud hanging very low on Mount Liamuiga, there was no view across to Nevis. The extraordinary sight of a bright rainbow coming out of the bottom of the rain cloud into the sea put a smile on our faces. Breakfast this morning consisted of yogurt and fresh berries, John followed this with a full English cooked meal, whilst I had smoked salmon with cream cheese on a toasted bagel. After breakfast we returned to the cabin and people watched ….it was windy and wet. We decided to wait a bit before going ashore and I took the chance to have an after breakfast nap……after all I’ve been up early every day 🤣🤣. I was finally ready to disembark at about mid-day. By now the sun was shinning and we walked the several thousand steps to the cruise terminal entrance. Once again we had not booked anything…we have been here 5 times before. Last time we went to Nevis by speed boat and explored the island with a Princess excursion. Prior to this we have always taken the train through the old sugar cane plantations. Princess had offered us this trip at a discounted price of $145 per person …the 3/4 hours would have cost us $290 ……it seems that the Americans and Canadians don’t think this is a lot but to us British that is a shed load of money….So we wandered down the quay and caught sight of local a tours lady…She offered us a 2.5/3 hour island tour for $25 per person …Yes Please !!! We had to wait 10 minutes so she could coerce another 3 people into doing the tour…..Castella went and got her air conditioned mini bus and off we went.
A quick drive around Basseterre, the capital, showed us a variety of sights ranging from schools and universities to churches of all denominations. We headed along the coast road passing Bloody Point, where the French and English had combined forces and massacred over 2000 Caribs. From here we went to the Old Road Rum area.
Continuing on passed one of the oldest churches and Brimstone Hill Fortress National Park. Eventually the coast road got to where the Atlantic and Caribbean Seas meet. We stopped at a view point to take photos.
Our journey took us a little way inland and we enjoyed the beautiful street art prior to stopping at the Lava Rock.
We walked out to the viewing platform and enjoyed the spectacular jet black rock formations. These are formed by lava, from the volcano. As an aside, it’s probably important to explain that all the natural sand on St Kitts is black volcanic sand. One or two of the upmarket resorts do have yellow sand which is imported. There were a few souvenir stalls at the Black Lava Beach and I purchased a nice little leather purse for my forex and a hand painted Christmas decoration.
Our final stop was a view point over Frigate Bay, this offers splendid views of both the Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea.
It was a superb tour with lots of information and we saw a great deal of the island which we had never seen before. Back in the cruise terminal we stopped to buy…..yes you guessed, John a t-shirt…..they had 2 for $10, as we like a bargain it would have seemed rude to buy one so we ended up with two!!!
Back on board we changed out of our hot and sweaty clothes, the humidity had been very high, and we headed to the buffet for a light lunch and a few games of cards. Tonight is the second evening of “The Voice of the Ocean”, auditions, which we are looking forward to hearing….don’t worry Dad I am not singing…..for those of you who don’t know me well I have a voice like a howling dog !!!! More about our evening tomorrow…Thank you for travelling along with us and thanks to those of you who have left such encouraging comments, we are glad you are enjoying our trip.
Last nights show, in the theatre, was a musical tribute to some of the biggest icons for the last 70 years…. It wasn’t the best we’ve seen… only two sang and the rest was recorded backing vocals and dancing… nothing really to write home about so I’ll leave it there and move on to Day 5 ….
This morning we woke without the alarm and got up… hard decisions to make… does one put ones one peice swimming costume before breakfast and hope you don’t need the toilet or does one change on the beach…. Ummm … I risked it and struggled into rent a tent!! Pulling a large T-shirt and my standard white baggy linen trousers …. Right! ready for breakfast… we couldn’t decide which restaurant served breakfast so once again we braved the buffet. This time we tried the other side and although it may have been my imagination it seemed less manic. I spied a free table and endeavoured to reach it, politely asking a gentleman, who was sat in the aisle with his adoring 15 strong family around him, to “excuse be” whilst gesturing Incase he didn’t understand me…. No response!!! Well!!! There’s some truth in the saying “if you can’t beat them join them” !!! So mustering all my strength I barged passed his chair almost catapulting him under the table .. all done with a lovely smile and an “oops so sorry”… I think he got the idea and shuffled his chair in to let John pass. Yeah! We have a table … from there on breakfast was quite simple…. Noisy but at least we could get to the food. …….. oh no !!! I did need the toilet … so I raced back to the cabin whilst John finished his coffee… dilemma overcome and we still make it to the theatre for our excursion in good time even though John is shaking his head at me in dispair…. Obviously not convinced that my tactics were brilliantly executed !!!! Bus Numero 12 was called luckily our French is better than our non existent Italian so when the caller forgets the English we still have some idea of what’s going on…
Today is our beach day…. I just love swimming in the sea so I am like “tigger” bouncing and bounding around. The coach took about 20 minutes to get to an area above a Sandy beach resort. It was Makris Gialos Beach and the beach facility was called Costa Costa beach. The track was quite steep and wound down onto a lovely yellow Sandy beach. Two loungers and a parasol were €30 , which we willingly paid…
We quickly stripped down to our swim suits and went straight into the sea… a few of our fellow beach goers squealed as they paddled in the cool ripples. But we are British we are made of stronger stuff than that !!! Out we waded and 1..2…3… we were in…. It was lovely , only taking seconds for our bodies to acclimatise to the temperature of the soothing sea… we swam, bobbed about and enjoyed the submergance.
Some considerable time later we took up residency on our loungers.
We did a repeat of this 3 times. Our lounger time was spent people watching and laughing in amazement at the adaptation of a paddle boat.
A lovely time spent on the beach. John played in the sand for a while !!!
We changed out of our wet costumes and meandered up to the bar for a Coke Zero.
We returned up the steep track and fortunately the bus was already there. He had just prevented a couple from embarking but I blew him a kiss and he opened the door…. I was probably the only person who had thanked him when he had dropped us off… he also turned the aircon up and gave me the thumbs up I blew him another kiss…
On returning to the ship we had a quick salad lunch and a Magic Island Mock-tail in our nearest bar before retiring for a siesta…. I went out like a light and only woke in time to shower and change for supper.
Now let me tell you about the shower … it is a sort of triangle with the longest straight side being about 2 foot and the other straight side being about 18 inches. To wash one’s hair you need to stick your head in the corner under the water meaning your derrière pushes itself out and becomes shrouded in the shower curtain. The opposite happens when you wash your derrière with your head pushed against the shower curtain… it really would pay to be a contortionist… if anyone has found an easier way to use this tiny shower I am open to ideas!!!!
Having completed the task, dried hair, ‘booted and suited’ we headed for the dining room…. Once again we had a wake view in Salem’s area. A nice menu allowed for a pleasant meal.
A quick night cap and we’re off for an early night as we have a busy day tomorrow….. So after applying copious amount of moisturiser to my lobster pink front, back and nose!!!!… we will say good night until we reach Bari.
John went to the station at 7.30 this morning, although we can see the trains from the front room and bedroom of the house, he wanted to take some photo’s on the station platform. So Dad and I had a slow start, made the picnic and picked him up at 11.00am. We headed off and through St Austell then turning right across what we call the downs, stopping briefly at Quintrell Downs station for a photo….
……before carrying on to Newquay. Newquay is a town on the north coast of Cornwall. The town is known for Sandy beaches at both Fistral and Watergate Bay. The waves from the Atlantic Ocean create strong surf. The town is bordered by several miles of Sandy beaches which make it one of the UK’s favourite holiday destinations.
The Fistral Bay is perhaps the best known surfing beach in the UK. As a consequence of this, in the summer it’s probably the most crowded! In fact at the height of the holiday season you might have to share a wave with another 300 people, but it’s worth it because Fistral can provide some class waves and holds swells up to 8ft. We didn’t stop at Fistral Bay today because we couldn’t find a car park where we could sit in the car and enjoy watching the surfers. It was very windy again today and there were some quite heavy downpours.
We eventually found a nice car park overlooking Watergate Bay…we counted 25 surfers along the bay. A leisurely picnic lunch was taken in the warm car, whilst watching the surfers ride the peaks, drop off, snake and carve, twist and turn. I always love watching them, knowing the excitement and adrenaline rush they will be having….it’s a long time since I had that feeling during my windsurfing years, but it’s one you never forget and you feel it in your gut every-time you watch others succeeding….I could watch surfers all day.
After lunch we drove further up the coast in the direction of Padstow. We went through some lovely seaside villages/towns.
We stopped for a view of the Bedruthan Steps. It is a National Trust car park with a Cafe, shop and toilets. We had decided not to do the walk to see the steps as Dad had previously done it with my sister, but it is a nice view point and we did need to use the toilet. We were told we would still have to pay for parking…John headed off to get a ticket..£2.50 for 1 hour, £5 for 2 hours and £9 for the day…..Johns reaction was ‘How Much!!’. The Lady said “IT IS National Trust’ !!!! ….No wonder there was plenty of room in the car park. To appease John I bought him a tub of rum & raisin ice cream……When the lady told me the price I just managed to refrain from saying I only wanted a couple of scoops not the whole container….and they were certainly quite small scoops…..talk about rip-off Britain…75p for a wee!!!! End of Rant !!
We continued up the coast a little further before heading back across the Cornish peninsula. After zigzagging through the Cornish lanes, with John saying the mirror at his side was brushing the bank of wildflowers, then he looked and saw it was the same on my side!!!….
……we made it back to Par. A quick stop at the St Blazey CO-OP to replenish the milk and fresh fruit supplies was required before we shut the rainy grey sky out for the night….. would you credit it no sooner had we got back the sun came out…Sod’s law !!! We are eating in tonight, Fish pie, asparagus, spinach and ginger cake with custard….
Tomorrow we hope for a better day weather wise so that we can go to Looe on the train…we love the quaint fishing village and the fish market will provide us with a nice supper…..but it’s all dependant on the weather because it’s quite a long walk from the station to the main town centre.
We were some what sad to leave the Sea World Botique in Mirissa…we loved our sea view room, the pool, terrace, sea and sand watching. The service was great and we’d found a really wonderful seafood restaurant just up the road. We would definitely stay there again…not just because they had the most comfortable pillows we’d had all trip…but leave we must.. and Suminda collected us at 8.30 am and we proceeded on our day of sightseeing, whilst transitioning to our next and final hotel.
Our first stop was at Wagamama just along the coast. The coast was literally packed with surf schools and in the water were hundreds of Caucasians trying to learn the art of surfing. It’s evidently very popular there due to the waves being medium size and the waters being shallow.
We went a little further along the coast and stopped for some photos of the infamous ‘Stilt Fishermen’. Unfortunately it’s all a bit touristy and false now…you pay them to sit on the stilts while they pretend to fish in this out dated rarely used today method.
Further along the coast we watched people pulling in the fishing nets, a much more realistic sight of more up to date fishing methods.
Our next stop was in Galle. We had asked Suminda to find us a book shop because we wanted to buy a book on Sri Lankan Birds to help us identify the birds in our photos. I’d try to write most the names down as we went along but my efforts failed miserably when we looked at our photos against my list of names. We had also decided to buy Suminda the same book as he had admitted to learning much more about the different birds on this trip and we thought it would help him identify the birds when he was with other customers. We went to the first bookshop but the book they had was ‘Common Sri Lankan Birds’ which had hardly any eagles in and the colour and pictures were not a very true likeness. So Suminda phoned around some other stores and found one which had two copies, in English, of the book we had in mind…they were both duly purchased along with a tube of superglue……John and his sandals are becoming a regular focal point of our recent holidays. Last year he packed one dark brown one and one camel coloured one for our African trip….this year he brought the dark brown ones with him, even though I asked if they were the good or not so good pair….they were the not so good pair and the side fastening has freed itself from the sole along with the inner sole flapping away from the sole…oh dear a super glue job is required to see us through the next 3 days….but be assured they are not coming home with us !!!! Our next stop was Galle Cricket Ground. It is where the test matches are played. Suminda told the security that John had played in England, but instead of saying ‘in’ he said ‘for’ and we were allowed into the ground to take photos…John was extremely happy as he has bygone memories of David Gower commentating on a Test Match and proving that the old tale of a Sri Lankan cricketer hitting the ball into the sea, was exactly that ‘a tale’ as it was literally impossible.
From here we visited the Fortress. This is in fact what we would call a walled city within the city of Galle. The Portuguese had originally built it, the Dutch then took it over and finally the British added to it. From the walls are some magnificent views. For those of you who watched Xander Armstrongs series on Sri Lanka, you may remember a man diving off the walls into very shallow water near the base of a massive rock…..that was here….in fact the same man offered to jump for us for US $20 just like he had for Xander…we declined and he asked why..to which my reply was “ I don’t wish to pay you to risk your life for my entertainment”. He seemed ok with that.
We continued our journey past our next hotel and up the coast to the turtle sanctuary at Ahungalla. On the way we passed the place where the tsunami had hit a train full of people. All 1500 had been killed. There is a memorial to those who lost their lives. This memorial is a Buddha who has been built to the height of the wave. There is also a museum with one of the carriages involved in this tragedy.
On arriving in Ahungalie there was a giant turtle with its mouth open. You enter the sanctuary by walking through its mouth.
The eggs are brought up from the beach and put in sand in the sanctuary, where they are left to hatch naturally. The sand has sticks all over it saying the type of turtle, the date they were laid and the number which are buried. It takes between 45 and 60 days for the eggs to hatch.
The baby turtles are then placed in a tank until their eyes open prior to being released back into the sea. It was very interesting. There are also a lot of other tanks with turtles in. These are rescued by fishermen and brought to the sanctuary. Most have had fishing lines/ nets caught tightly around their necks..the blood makes them easy pray for sharks. These are treated by the sanctuaries vet and released back into the sea when they are completely healed. Other turtles have eaten plastic bags and the vet removes these and again after a period of rehabilitation they are released back to the sea. There are also some life long resident turtles at the sanctuary. These have either had limbs amputated by boats propellors, or they’ve been so damaged by plastic that their shells have domed meaning that they can no longer dive or they are albino. The sanctuary has 2 albino turtles, they occur approx 1 in a million and our guide had only seen these two in the past 14 years. One was a youngster and the other fully grown. They can’t be released back into the sea because they have no protection from the sun.
We then went through a Sharks mouth into an area with aquariums containing, Black finned Sharks, puffer fish, moray eels, starfish, rainbow fish etc. It was all very interesting and we found that their conservation of these endangered species was both ethical and professional.
We returned back down the coast to our new hotel Sapphire Seas Hotel. We were met by the manager who informed us he had given us the best room in the hotel with a wrap around balcony and two walls of glass doors which looked at the sea from two different aspects…it was on the second floor…..’oh no’ I thought…but this friendly gentleman said I need not worry as they have a lift….great news… we were shown to our room, which was so large John said he’d probably double his daily step count !!!! It didn’t take us long to don our costumes and head for the Sun loungers and pool. We spent a couple of very pleasant hours watching some pretty big waves chase along the beach with the surf producing a ‘ follow my leader’ type of image. We also had a nice refreshing King Coconut to drink. Before retiring to our room for a late afternoon siesta.
We ate in the restaurant that evening. The chef came and talked us through what we wanted….he said he would make the seafood Tom yum ( Thai soup) not so spicy. Well! thank goodness for that because his not so spicy made our eyes and noses run. We followed it by having sweet and sour king prawns …very nice indeed. The manager, a nice friendly man, came to chat with us before he finished his days work. It was a lovely meal. Unfortunately the lift was out of order, due to fluctuating electricity strength, so I had to walk up to the second d floor….I am getting better at stairs…let’s face it I’ve had enough practice this holiday.
Time for bed now…to the sound of the waves on the beach ….
2 J's World of Adventure 