2 May Exploring Dominica by car

After our car hire disaster three days ago I was considering cancelling our second scheduled day. We decided to go ahead and fit in as much as many sites as possible and were packing the bags when a message from the car rental company came in. Was something wrong? No car available? No, to thank us for our support and to apologise for Saturday there would be no charge for today! And they gave us an upgrade to boot! Thank you to Gary at Silver Linings.

With an extra bounce in our tyres and a plan to keep to main roads we set off south along the coast road, destination Titou Gorge.

The gorge is an immersive experience; a short swim through a narrow gorge to enter a sunlight pool with a waterfall. We arrived at the empty car park quite early, just as the rain began to fall, and opted to change into our bathers in the car. It was raining as we walked up to the ticket office. We already had a week pass so nothing to buy except the gorge was closed to swimmers because the flow of water was too fast and too dirty to be safe due to earlier rain in the mountain above. We aren't having much luck with our sightseeing. I nearly trod on a frog on the way back to the car, where we changed back into our shorts and shirts, and on to the next spot.

Titou Gorge - what we missed

This was better – two waterfalls collectively known as Trafalgar Falls, viewed from the safety of a roofed shelter. The taller fall, Papa Fall is cold water. The lower, Mama Fall is warm from thermal activity. I believe it is possible to scramble over slippery and sharp rocks to pools at the bottom of each but with our recent run of luck I opted not to evoke Murphy's Law.

Trafalgar Falls

The third item on the list was hot springs at Wotton Waven (As a sidebar. There is a village in Warwickshire where I come from called Wotton Wawen. Bit of a coincidence.) All access points to dip a toe in warm water are in privately owned land and today they all we saw were closed. Possibly because the cruise ship season has ended.

By now my enthusiasm and get up and go had gone. There was still time to drive to the very north of the island, look at Guadeloupe and visit a cold sulphur spring before returning the car.

David agreed so we drove back up the coast road passing through the town of Massacre and the local primary school. I wonder if they've ever considered changing the name?

The road up to Connor Bay Reserve on the north tip was twisting up and down through small communities. If you had time there was a coast path which looked interesting if you had time.

Connor Bay

The cold sulphur springs are in the bottom of an old caldera and impossible to miss – keep to the path and follow the smell of bad eggs. A little stream passing close to vents from deep in the earth.

cold sulphur spring

And thus concluded our day of exploring Dominica by raod. We dropped the car off five minutes before the office closed and got a lift back to our dinghy at the PAYS dock.

We were happy to be home, to see Polly and to get ready to leave tomorrow, destination Martinique.