As we hurtle towards Christmas we thought we’d give you a quick update on what’s happening with us.
Unfortunately, my planned hip replacement surgery didn’t happen in October after I failed the pre-op assessment due to my red blood cell count being too low. I am happy to say I have now had the surgery done (on 12th December) which means a very inactive festive period for me and a busy one for Colin who will be cooking Christmas lunch for me and my brothers and ferrying us around.
As I will not be able to travel in Lo11y or fly long haul for 12 weeks post op, we decided to get away for a week for some winter sun (and give Colin a break from decorating). Still not being able to return to Europe as our 90 day Schengen clock hasn’t reset, we opted for St Lucia with an 8 ½ hour direct flight and only a 4 hour time difference. We’re not really beach loving people, so we planned to do some scuba diving and hire a car for a couple of days.
We stopped at a small mid-price hotel in Rodney Bay (Harmony Marina Suites) which is the north of the island and seemed to be a good base to do some scuba diving and was walking distance to the local town with bars and restaurants. It also has one of the highest rated restaurants on the island based there (Jacques Waterfront Dining) where we enjoyed a very nice meal on our second night.
We did have a pleasant week overall in St Lucia, but without being wowed by it. The first day the rain did not stop, but thankfully it did eventually come good and we walked round to the local Reduit beach and enjoyed a sundowner with a fabulous sunset. The beach is a fantastic stretch of soft white sand with views across to Pigeon Island.
The scuba company couldn't fit us in for diving for the next couple of days, so we hired a car for 2 days to explore the south of the island where most of the tourist attractions seemed to be. On paper we thought it would just be a short drive to Soufriere, the main tourist town in the south – 51km/32 miles, but in reality, it took us over two hours of twisting, steep switch backed, potholed roads, totally gridlocked around the towns – definitely not for the faint hearted. As well as the roads being narrow and in bad condition, there were gaping drainage ditches at the edge of the road where vehicles have to get dangerously close to pass. As for the locals driving…..The roads were really poorly signed as well, and Google maps took us off down the wrong routes a couple of times.
We broke our journey on the first day after just 10km at Castries, the capital of St Lucia. With a population of just 30,000 it’s not a large place, but the tourist guides made it sound worth a visit to look at the architecture and central market. The 10km took us over half an hour to negotiate then we struggled to find anywhere to park. We finally found a space on a square. There were parking pay machines there, but they didn’t seem to be working. After scratching our heads about how to pay, a man came out of a library building opposite and said we could pay him. I don’t know if the sun had just gone to our heads, but we handed him some money, and as we walked away both realised what idiots we were handing money to a stranger with no receipt. We were later told the pay machines had been set up ages ago, but they’d never got round to commissioning them, so you didn’t need to pay for these spaces.
We found the central market, which has been running daily since 1894, was a bit underwhelming after some of the others we’ve visited on our travels.
A large part of it is aimed at the tourists off the cruise ships which dock in the bay here. There were two massive cruise ships in this day. There wasn’t much else of interest we could see in the central commercial area – we couldn’t even get a decent coffee, so we continued our journey southwards. Coming out of Castries the road was unbelievably steep and we got stuck behind some cruise ship tour vehicles which were struggling to get around the switchback bends.
The roads seemed to deteriorate from hereon in. Colin kept asking if I was sure we were on the main road and there were miles of it under construction. There probably were some good views along the way of steep rain forested hills and out to the coast, but the driving didn’t really allow us to appreciate it. We did pass through some colourful locals towns though.
We finally came to a viewpoint of the two pitons (volcanic mountains) that St Lucia is famous for and form the stunning backdrop to Soufriere.
We parked up in the town which is a tourist hub for the surrounding attractions and boat tours.
We grabbed a spot of lunch then, as it was already mid-afternoon, we decided we’d just head to a beach that was recommended for snorkelling called Anse Marmin. The beach was tucked away behind a busy resort beach. It was pretty quiet when we reached the public beach and we found a shady spot under some palm trees. Colin went off to check out the snorkelling, which was supposed to be one of the best areas on the island. He said it was OK – he saw a small turtle and some nice fish, but he’d had to swim quite a distance to see them. I just enjoyed a cool down dip in the warm water.
We started our long journey back to Rodney Bay just before sunset (5.30), so the driving was made even more challenging in the dark. We could see the main road to Castries was gridlocked, so we took the back roads to dodge this, where we joined the locals ‘exciting’ driving.
We were pretty frazzled by the time we made it back to our hotel. We had planned to go to the famous Friday night street party in Gros Islet where there are lots of street food vendors selling grilled seafood with drinks and live music. It would have meant getting a taxi, and the roads around Rodney Bay were already at a standstill, so we opted for a quieter night having a pizza at a local Italian restaurant.
We agreed on reflection we may have been better splitting the accommodation for the week between north and south, as we had to face the long rough journey to Soufriere again the following morning.
We got ourselves on the road earlier the following day and it was all looking familiar by now. We ended up in an empty restaurant for breakfast by the seafront in Soufriere where we had a not very nice breakfast and still no decent coffee.
Our first attraction to visit today was the Diamond Botanical Gardens, with mineral baths and a waterfall just a short distance from Soufriere. These sit on an estate that King Louis XIV granted to three brothers in recognition for their services to King & Country. There were quite a few tourist groups in and we tailgated them to listen to the facts about the site and the plants. The tropical plants were nice, but the gardens weren’t as pristine as most botanical gardens, although saying that, with the heavy rainfall the plants do take a bit of a battering. There were some mineral baths in the grounds, where it is claimed Napoleon’s wife Josephine bathed when she holidayed here, but we gave them a miss as we were heading to some hot springs next.
We continued on towards the Sulphur Springs on a narrow road and found ourselves reversing multiple times as we came up against unrelenting locals in their vehicles. The road then appeared to run out and a guy came out of his drive and asked if we were following Google Maps – yes we were – he then told us it was wrong and we must head back to town to come out on another road – he obviously has this conversation daily with lost tourists.
The Sulphur Springs are billed as the worlds only drive-in volcano, although we had to leave the car in the car park outside it. We could see some of the steaming landscape, but we hadn’t bought the ticket to allow us to walk up closer. We did go into the mud baths where you cover yourself in liquid mud, let it dry, then go into one of the hot mud baths to soak it off. The mud and baths supposedly make you look 10 years younger and are said to have medicinal properties including soothing arthritis and sore joints. My hip did actually feel a bit better afterwards and our skin felt super smooth. It was full of tour groups when we arrived, but they all suddenly left us to it (presumably to be whisked off to lunch).
We planned to get lunch at Project Chocolat which is just down the road from the mud baths. This is on Hotel Chocolat’s cocoa farm set in a tropical estate. They have tours into the rain forest and you can even make you own chocolate bar. We were very disappointed to find the gates closed, and the security guy told us it had closed early that day as they were setting up for a function that evening.
We wanted to get a different view of the pitons and our next stop was the Tet Paul Nature Trail which is a community run project giving visitors a guided walk up a trail in their village to get panoramic views of both pitons. The trail was well maintained and we had a first stop at a view of the Gros Piton, then after ascending the Stairway to Heaven we got views of the Petit Piton. Unfortunately we could see a band of rain sweeping our way at speed, so the views weren’t quite so clear, but still very nice. Our guide, a young woman, wasn’t the most communicative, and we had to work hard to extract information from her. Colin was smirking when we’d finished the trail. When I asked why he said she had asked ‘what is wrong with your wife’s hip? Is it because she is old?’ That made the decision of whether we should tip her very easy.
We now headed to Sugar Beach which sits in a stunning location at the base of the Pitons. It is located at an exclusive resort, and we had to work on the security guy at the entrance to allow us to drive to the visitors car park about a km down the hill, that still left us with a steep 10 minute walk down to the beach. The area of ‘public’ beach was very small and stony, but Colin had a quick snorkel here and said it was pretty good.
We were allowed to order a drink in one of the resort restaurants. It would be a fabulous place to watch the sunset, but we needed to start heading back to Rodney Bay and fill up with petrol before the petrol stations closed for the evening.
The light over the pitons was beautiful as we climbed into the hills.
We avoided the back road route around Castries this time, preferring to sit it out a bit longer in the queues on the main road. Before going back to our hotel, we drove to Gros Islet to Duke’s Place – a street food stall on the waterfront serving freshly grilled fish. It is only open on Fridays and Saturdays, and as we’d missed the Friday street party we wanted to try some more authentic local food. There was a choice of 2 types of fish (dependent on what they had caught that day).
We opted for barracuda which was served with yellow rice and smothered in what I think is an onion and garlic vinaigrette. Colin added a bit too much of the hot sauce so ended up with his eyes watering, but it was delicious. Some local cats and dogs joined us with big pleading eyes.
We had scuba diving booked for the next two days from the dive shop based in our hotel. We had a long wait the first morning while the crew went off to get fuel for the boat, although we think they were probably hungover from their Saturday night out and had probably overslept. We picked up other divers on the way, including a couple from one of the cruise ships in Castries. Going by boat to the south of the island is much quicker and smoother than driving. Our first dive was close to the Anse Marmin beach at a site called Turtle Reef. We did have some nice sightings of turtles. The reef wasn’t in great condition, but it was a very nice relaxed gentle dive. The second dive site was in a bay a little further North and again was a nice gentle dive with perhaps more colouful fish.
The diving on the second day took us back to the same bay, but we dived two different sites. The first was a wreck dive (not one you swim into) and the second on a colourful reef. This time our dive instructor (KC) was the one to hold us up. We had to pick him up at Castries and there was no sign of him for 15 minutes. Once he finally turned up he said he was a freelance instructor who mainly worked for the Sandals resorts and has previously been a chef in Montenegro. He didn’t look very comfortable in the water and spent most of the first dive with his mask off trying to clear it. A bigger drama was what happened to the other couple from New York that should have been diving with us.
On the first dive Colin and I descended but could see the others were struggling on the surface. Eventually KC and the guy appeared, but then the guy disappeared again. I thought KC would go and check if he was OK, but he just carried on with Colin and I. When we got back on the boat after the dive, the guy said he and his wife’s masks were both letting water in, then when he had come back down the glass actually fell out of his mask! We both have our own prescription lens masks, and to be fair had found the rest of the equipment ok. When we got back to our hotel we could see the New York couple were obviously not impressed with their experience.
On our final full day on the island we decided to stay in the north and visit Pigeon Island National Park. We first walked to the Rodney Bay Marina complex to a ‘proper’ coffee shop and had our first decent coffee of the week. We then caught a taxi to the National Park.
Pigeon Island is a 44 acre island reserve in the north of St Lucia and was joined to the mainland by a causeway in 1972 and was designated a National Park in 1979. There is a US$10 entrance fee, but it is a lovely area to visit with hiking trails to ruins of military buildings used during the battles between the French and the British for the island of Saint Lucia, two tranquil beaches, and a restaurant (closed for renovation) and museum. We walked up to the top of Fort Rodney for stunning views of the North West coastline. You can even see the neighbouring island of Martinique from here. There was a steeper hike to another viewpoint called Signal Point which we didn't do.
We'd brought our bathers and reading books to have our only few hours spent on the beach this week. After debating whether we hire sun chairs on the quieter beaches within the park, we opted for the busy public beach just outside which had more options for refreshments. It was packed with cruise ship visitors and we got the last two sun loungers wedged in at the end of the beach. I got chatting to a lady on the sunbed next to me who was only a few inches from me. She was visiting the beach off a cruise ship that was carrying 5,000 people and was visiting several Caribbean Islands. She said there were 4 cruise ships moored up in Castries this day. The numbers are just mind boggling, and I think that may be why we haven't been overwhelmed with St Lucia as the tourist sites and services are very geared up to receive brief visits from the cruise ships rather than independent travellers. A small boat cruised up and down the beach blaring 70's and 80's classics (Caribbean Queen by Billy Ocean) selling cold beers and cocktails. As at the Sulphur Springs, at 2.55pm the sun loungers emptied as the other visitors rushed off onto buses, and we suddenly had the beach nearly to ourselves. We went wild and had a cold beer, before catching a taxi back to our hotel.
We decided to go and enjoy sunset at the local beach for one last time, taking some beer and wine we had left from our room fridge. We were treated to a beautiful sunset.
We then enjoyed our last dinner at a local restaurant called Buzz Seafood and Grill.
Our flight back to the UK wasn't until 8.30pm the following day, and with hotel check out at noon it wasn't easy to go off and do something. We had a final breakfast on our balcony with Mr & Mrs Budgie, who were with us every day waiting for their breakfast - they were very partial to the Waitrose granola we had purchased from the local supermarket.
The hotel wanted us to pay for a late checkout, so we decided to check out on time and caught a taxi to The Naked Fisherman Bar and Grill, set on a beautiful small beach down some steps from an upmarket resort hotel and rated highly for it's food, service and laid back vibe. We certainly were not disappointed. The food, location and service were fantastic. Our only regret maybe was we should have come here the day before for our beach afternoon.
It was the perfect treat to spend our last day in St Lucia.
Back at our hotel we had the horrible task of changing out of our shorts into long trousers ready to face the British weather waiting for us at Gatwick the following morning. We had ordered a taxi to the airport through Booking.com but the receptionist at the hotel had got himself confused and thought we were going with the hotel taxi. So when our taxi turned up, we had the hotel taxi hovering and we had to try to explain we'd gone with another option. The guy who took us to the airport was a lovey chap, his main job being a fireman based in Castries. When we arrived at the airport Colin discovered he'd left his travel day pack (with iPad and warm clothes) back in the hotel reception after all the last minute confusion with the taxis. With more than a three hour round trip to retrieve it we had to hope we could arrange to get the hotel to post it back to the UK.
We had a smooth flight home and had a stroke of luck that friends in Northampton said their parents were holidaying in St Lucia and we managed to contact them and they very kindly agreed if we could get the bag transferred to their hotel they would bring it back for us. Even more lucky was their hotel was in the North of the island and the hotel taxi took it to them free of charge.
I had a week to prepare for my surgery when we got back, and managed to get a fair bit of Xmas preparation underway, and even got Colin to relent and let me put a Christmas tree up. We also had a trip to London to check the condition of our London flat that had just been vacated by the long term tenants. Colin will need to come down to do some decorating before we get new tenants in the New Year. We also met up with Colin's sister Sara and niece Madeline for dinner.
I'm happy to report the surgery seems to have gone well and after just one night in the private hospital I am back home pottering around.
Lo11y is still in Peterborough having remedial works done on her, so we're not sure when we'll get her back in the New Year. Our plans are continuing to be fluid for setting off more permanently on our travels. Our current thoughts are, assuming my hip is fully recovered within the three months, that we have another 90 days in the Schengen countries in springtime, focusing on the Baltic countries, then we'd like to have some time in Ireland on the Wild Atlantic Way, with the aim to set off proper late Autumn 2025. Watch this space.....
For the time being we wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and best wishes for the New Year.
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