30 April St Helena island tour day 1 – central and east

Only on St Helena can you rent a two seater convertible car for £18 a day. Jeremy at Port Control has two Ford Ka which he imported from UK to rent out.

multi coloured sands new Cox's Battery

With the top down, morning drizzle in our hair and a basic map, GPS on the phone declined to work thus rendering the preloaded maps in Map.me useless, we bumbled off. Up the hill from Jamestown, turn left and follow the single track, twisting, hair pin bend roads to the north. And then we came upon the New road which links the cargo port at Ruperts Bay with the new airport on the east side of the island. This is a two lane highway where you can get in to 5^th gear!

Running back from Ruperts towards the airport we stopped for a walk out to Cox's Battery with views of the former Boer camp site and the island refuse tip. Between 1900 and 1902 during the Anglo-Boer War in South Africa 6,000 POWs were imprisoned on the island.

getting ready to...

..launch weather balloon

Next stop – the Meteorological station. Station officers Laurie and Gary welcomed our visit, gave us the tour and answered all our questions. This is part of the UK's world wide weather data collection points. At 11.15 GMT every day every site around the world releases a helium balloon with an electronic data tracker attached.  Note the fire hazard clothing Gary, aka Honey Bear, is wearing.

Continuing fast along the new road we came to the airport. It is an impressive achievement for construction

man made land fill for runway

in unsuitable terrain. At a reputed cost of £2bn to the British MOD a valley was filled in and extensions built out to the coast for a long, flat piece of tarmac. The plane, about 80 seats, comes in from Jo'berg on Saturday afternoon. Weather permitting. The landing strip runs north south. The predominant winds are from the east. Apparently the first landing almost ended in disaster. It didn't, but now whenever the plane is due three Sea Rescue craft are launched to stand off at sea 'just in case'.

Napoleon's death bed

Climbing back to the centre of the island we shifted our focus from modern day to historical first visiting the prison of Napoleon Bonaparte, a rather nice house called Longwood where he was brought after the battle of Waterloo in 1815 and remained until his death in 1821. His was buried on the island in a pretty glade and then in 1840 his remains were returned to Paris and are now in Les Invalides, a grand mausoleum.

The land belongs to France

Napoleon's first burial spot

Driving to the Governor's residence at Plantation House we passed Halley's Mount where he came to observe the stars. The night sky is particularly clear and full of stars. We stopped for a short walk to the Boer cemetery, unnamed white graves on a steep slope.

Boer POW graves

Plantation House

Her Excellency, the governor of St Helena lives at Plantation House, as does the world's oldest reptile, Jonathon the tortoise, in a grassy paddock in front of the house. 

 A walk around the boundary brought us to Scotland. Yes, Scotland, an area of farming and the island poultry farm where we bought beautiful fresh eggs from manager, Rodney.

Sometimes we seemed to be going up and down the same road and this was how we chanced on St Paul's Cathedral. Much, much smaller than it's namesake in London and set in a pretty rural location.

in the hire Ka convertible

St Paul's Cathedral, St Helena

There was just enough time to drive up to High Knoll fort over looking Jamestown and most of the rest of the island on our way back to Jamestown to catch last ferry of the day at 6pm.

High Knoll

Leaving through the front door

 If you want a later ride back to your boat there's a £30 surcharge. High Knoll Fort is high, built on a knoll and it's a fort giving great views across the island.