Thursday 27 May Exploring

Kayaking to start of walk

The day began with grand plans to be off exploring early. As with all good plans these got scuppered. First our friends from Bristol Rose stopped by for a quick hello. An hour and a half later they said goodbye. But that is a joy of this life; there's time to stop and chat with friends without feelinng you should be off achieving something worthwhile. Exchanging ideas and news is worthwhile to us. Trisha had told us there were grapefruit free to be collected off the beach behind and a starving kitten living in the abandoned fisherman's shack. We kayaked ashore and were greeted by an emaciated bundle, too weak to mew, but friendly and very pretty, dark grey fur ad green eyes. We fed her milk and tuna which was much appreciated. Poor little thing. It was a long time since anyone had lived in the shack so we don't know how long she had been there. We scrumped a dozen large grapefruit from the two trees and collected a couple of coconuts with the help of the kitten under our feet. We left her on the beach with the promise to come back tomorrow.

From Daniel's Bay you can do a 2 hour walk up to a waterfall on the island. Bristol Rose had done the walk and although there was no water over the fall the walk was spectacular. The walk was spectacular first through orchards of bananas, coconuts and lime trees, then across a stream with a pony standing in the middle to cool her hooves and up into the forest canopy. It must be an ancient walk because all along the track there was a man made stone wall and stone carvings.

Had a swim in the inner pool

At head of gorge

We continued climbing up and inland through the trees until suddenly the path opened out and ahead of us was a sheer stone cliff rising 300m with the small river flowing along the base. Following the river we went into the ravine and eventually came to a pool with cliffs on either side, huge boulders at the back and the dry fall behind it. The sun only reaches the deepest part at midday, for the rest of the time it is in shadow. Pictures and words can't describe the magic of this spot. We could imagine in the wet season the whole ravine floor is awash with water and spray. In the dry season we were able to clamber to the back of the pool and around the boulders to swim in the second deep pool at the foot of the falls. In the outer pool we'd seen a 4' eel and lots of freshwater shrimps, in the inner pool I hoped not to see any eels as we swam in the cold water. Something tickled my toes. Was it a man eating freshwater shrimp or the eel? I didn't stop to find out and posted a new personal best for the 10m swim sprint.

The sun was going down as we left the waterfall so we had a speedy trot back down the valley to the beach where we'd left the kayak. It had taken a couple óf hours to walk up and half an hour less to come down. Going back through the orchard track we'll admit to scrumping a hatful of limes and a windfall mango. All in all an excellent afteroon exploring.