Antigua is not somewhere to come for a walking holiday, I doubt if it features in Ramblers brochure, more than a few miles becomes tiring in the 30 degree heat but in the past week we have done two good walks, both to the top of hills.
The first was to Fort George (there is a Fort George on every Caribbean Island - Trinidad, Grenada, Belize, Turks & Caicos, Jamaica, Tobago, Barbados, St Kitts – you would think they would name some of them after someone other than the King). It was a bit of a climb but the views of Falmouth bay (picture above) made it worthwhile.
There is not much left of the fort, I tested the strength of the remaining sections by standing on the arch but did not risk jumping up and down.
The second walk up Signal Hill (guess what, every Caribbean island also has a Signal Hill) was in a formal nature reserve so we had to fill out a form to agree that if we got lost or injured we would not claim off the park. All the trees had labels telling us what they were, the picture is of a fig strangler tree.
When we got to the top we had a good view of Monserrat and St Kitts & Nevis, we had hoped to visit Monserrat during our holiday. It was very badly damaged by a volcano erupting in 1995, it is still active today and half the island is an exclusion zone. One of the tourist sights is the ruin of George Martin's other studio and having visited Abbey Road last year I thought I would pay a visit. We then discovered that Monserrat insist on visitors spending five days in quarantine, I don’t want to see the studio that much.
Actually there is an exception to islands with Fort Georges and Signal Hills. Antigua’s sister island Barbuda has no hills, it is so flat you can’t see it from Antigua, it’s highest point is 125ft above sea level and as the island is over 60 miles away it is hidden behind the curvature of the earth. Apparently it has some nice beaches, day trips to the island leave at 7am and to get to the ferry we would have to be up before 6am, add the $90 US each ticket price and we decided to stick with the perfectly nice beaches on Antigua.
Off swiming in a minute, steel band day on Sunday and a fishing trip on Monday, watch this space for more exciting adventures.