Sunday 1 March 2009

A Nice Day Out

Our church organised a morning walk and afternoon bathe for Ash Wednesday - happily everyone had petrol to get us there and our friends gave us a lift to sort out our lack of car space. We began the day at a place called An Ba Bwa La (looks exciting but simply means In The Woods!) which actually begins at the train station for the little Beauport train we took through sugar cane fields. No sign of the train though - presumably on strike for a better way of life.
Our walk was a good two hours and (we reckon, based on our exhausted feet and burnt arms and necks) at least four miles. At least! The scenery was beautiful, with all sorts of delightful plants to admire and photograph. On the far right top and bottom is the mahogany tree and its seed - looks nothing like the wood I must say. The bottom left photos are of a baby version of the passion fruit - delicious! No idea about the names of the others but they look pretty.There were also plenty of sugar cane fields to admire - these should be being harvested right now but...you guessed it, they are not due to the strike! However, the owner was driving through and he kindly gave Bertie a couple of canes to enjoy. Mum enjoyed using them as a Lechy stick!
The second part was through the woods and much cooler to our relief. Unfortunately, LissaLou spent a good hour of the walk moaning and crying - must work on her walking skills, as it is something we love and intend to do lots of in the future.

Baby JoJo was in our backpack for the first time and loved it - look at the cheeky boy stealing a bit of bread from the pocket!
After completing our walk and enjoying our well-deserved sandwiches, we set off for the beach. We returned to Porte d'Enfer a place that Bertie and I visited as a young, carefree couple in 2000 and have never been back to since - what a difference a few extra children makes!

It is a beautiful calm lagoon, great for children, with a grassy area all the way down the side complete with trees for shade and huts for picknickers (though you have to get there very early to bag one of these!) and a distinct lack of sand, hurray! At the end of the lagoon is the actual Porte d'Enfer, or Gate to Hell, where the Atlantic and Caribbean meet and the sea becomes ferocious. Venture along here at your peril! For some interesting details on the name (in french) have a look at this blog I happened upon.

Mum and Evs went for a walk along the cliff to Trou a Man Coco where you are meant to see water crashing in but for some reason they didn't (oh of course, it was on strike!). I must look at my photos from 2000 and see what it was like on our visit. The girls enjoyed the sea, Baby JoJo had a happy time scrabbling in the dirt, and Bertie made a great comeback to triumph in a game of Petanque with some of the other guys!

We stopped off at a viewing point of the magnificent coast before returning home.
Ah!
Mum and Evs have the proper Mother & Daughter photos but I quite liked this angle! Can you guess who is who....
We all slept very well that night! The only downside is that Bertie lost his mobile phone somewhere on the 2 hour walk...so we may be doing it all again!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

The good news is that the phone turned up below the bed on Sunday morning! PTL

Anonymous said...

Love reading your blog! Glad the phone turned up! Best wishes

Anonymous said...

left Mum, centre Hevs, right Evs?
Yve x

Hevs said...

Spot on! nice to have you visiting ladies!