Hiking in the bush felt like being back in Africa

Our delicious fresh brown eggs from the little shop here, have really improved our cooked breakfasts. They must be from the local chickens we hear every morning in the dawn chorus.

We decided to walk over to the next bay where our guests from yesterday are moored. We walked along the road to get there which winds through a valley in the mountains. A very colourful walk with bougainvillea on both sides of the road. It is a very sheltered bay and Rowan counted over 100 boats moored out in it, which we think is rather crowded and certainly you wouldn’t want to be swim there! Pretty beaches but I think our bay is much nicer. The beaches must be humming when out of lockdown, there are amazing little beach bars built virtually to the water’s edge. it is so quiet now but must be a really bustling dock under normal circumstances.

Our permission to be out and about

Purple throated Carib hummingbird ….. so sad the colours didn’t come out!

Crowded bay!

We had a call planned with the kids for 1pm so we couldn’t linger much, plus you are not allowed on the beaches and nowhere is open, so we walked back along the path which goes over the top of the headland. We left the last house and it was like being back in Africa, boiling hot, remote, and the vegetation very dry and dense. Loads of birds about enjoying a lot of trees out in blossom. Our steep incline kept opening up to wonderful panoramas of the bay below. It was a good hour long walk, and really got the old heart pumping going up the steep rocky lava pathway. It was very hot, even though it was pretty cloudy, we were so grateful we took water with us.

Always a bit of a relief to see Jeldi Jeldi at the docks ….. that she has not been nicked! Plus Pole Pole still at anchor in the same spot, always a slight worry a wind may pick up and move the anchor. We had a very amusing story from the Coughing Major that their boat took off from its anchorage when they were out shopping, they returned to the spot and thought they were going mad when it wasn’t there. In fact it was quite serious as people managed to board it but only after it had crashed into rocks and done a fair amount of damage!

We made our planned meeting time with the kids but only Phoebs could make it. We caught up with how her adolescent ducklings are doing, they are loving being in their outdoor pen but pine for their human parents. As soon as anyone goes outdoors they all start up a cry and rush over. The new chooks are out and about in the garden now and providing wonderful eggs already. It’s only Coco whose nose is slightly out of joint because he isn’t getting ALL the attention anymore. They are on a cooking rota and the dishes they are producing just makes us drool with envy. Phoeb’s has mastered pickling which is something I must work at, as I’m sure it would be great for the boat.

We had our first quiz evening with friends which was very entertaining and wonderful to catch up with lots of faces on zoom. Each family has to provide 10 questions on a specific subject and we chose ‘Caribbean Islands’, somehow we managed to not come last! We were very grateful to ‘we won’t mention names’ for taking that position from us! Or the marking official was maybe on our side! We’ve decided on our topic for next week … Boris Johnson (lots of dodgy facts there!).

It was both a mentally and physically challenging day for us, we couldn’t wait to hit the sack!