A good hike over the mountain to the windward side of the island.

We definitely felt like we needed a good walk. We walked through town and then headed straight up to the top. It was a very hot and steamy climb up, but we had a welcome break halfway up when we found a pottery studio open. They are English and live here for 6 months and return to the UK and France for the hurricane season. We really liked their pottery, so had to buy a few little pieces, Rowan reminding me that breakables are not sensible on the boat! I paid and said I would come back sometime to pick them up, it was unbelievably cheap, especially here in the Caribbean where everything is extortionate. We made it to the top eventually and then found a track that took us along the ridge line, with lovely views towards Kingstown on St Vincent. There was a fury of white horses between the two islands, the wind is really pumping. We finally came out at an estate which had a little viewing garden at the top where we had a welcome seat in the shade. I was so glad we were not out at sea.

We walked back down through the estate, the houses are expensive, enormous and manicured, with some very colourful gardens. Sadly I don’t think any locals live on this enormous estate. It has the steepest roads zigzagging back and forth, and we finally made it down to the windward side of the island.

We got to the beach and the wind was howling, with lots of debris and seaweed blown in. We headed home on the main road which crosses over at the lowest point of the mountain but still quite a climb back. We passed an old sugar plantation, the mill has been made into a little hotel, so we decided to stop there for lunch at their restaurant called Firefly. It had a lovely view and being slightly elevated had a good cooling breeze. We had coconut crusted lion fish which was very good, and lion fish ceviche. We feel so good about eating the lion fish, as they are trying to eradicate it from the waters here as it has become so invasive. Leonie was telling us yesterday that all the diving operators spear them if they come across them. The only thing that non locals are allowed to spear fish.

View from the Potters

At the top

Plenty of white horses

View across to St Vincent

Both sides of the island

The howling windward bay

We finally made it back to town and after a little provisioning made it back to PolePole balancing a whole big tray of eggs (30) precariously on my lap over the choppy waters.

We were happy to go to bed knowing that we had walked 10kms and climbed 58 floors.