Vacation Humpday.

Midway through vacation. That’s what today was. We aren’t thinking of heading home but we start to think of what else we’d like to do while we’re here.  More hiking and snorkeling make the short list.

Yesterday and today we hiked. About 6 miles yesterday, down a goat path on a ridge that very few people hike, Giles Track. It was completely exposed, hot and dry. Very hot. Very sunny. It went all the way down to the coast, under cliffs with precariously perched boulders everywhere above us. But it was gorgeous, and we saw no one.

Panorama of the view where we hiked down. 

Tom at the bottom. You can see the ridge we followed on the left. 

Today we walked about 8 miles total, starting off on the Crispeen Track to The Bottom from our town Windwardside. We took off before breakfast in search of Island Flavors breakfast/lunch place. It did not disappoint!  But walking an hour through steep rainforest will definitely give you an appetite. 

After breakfast we headed over to The Ladder hike. It is a steep staircase on the side of a cliff that was used to transfer ALL goods coming into the island from the water. After hiking it I cannot imagine moving things like grand pianos up. But they did. 

This is Ladder Cove. Beautiful. 

This is the top of the staircase looking down. 

After also visiting the harbor and deciding it was too rough to snorkel, we headed back up through the rainforest toward our town. 

This is the cutest newborn goat we saw at a house on a footpath in the middle of the rainforest. We met the original owner and builder, now in his 70s that shared great stories of the island back in the day while we sat on decrepit plastic furniture in his side yard. Thank you Mr Barnes, for the hospitality.  

We arrived back at our cottage completely sweaty and disgusting. Finished up with the pool, dinner and then chasing an escaped dog down on the museum grounds while trying to protect these pet rabbits of the museum. No lie. We saved them all and captured the dog. 

Saba

We decided to get away (really away) to a tiny island in the Caribbean. These days it is hard to escape crowds in the Caribbean, but you can here. It is a small speck of an island, the top of an inactive volcano, actually. It measures about 1.5 miles across in both directions. Why is it unspoiled?  Probably from the lack of any real beaches, there are a couple on the island but they are either transitory or small/manmade. However, it makes up for the lack of beaches with great hiking, scuba/snorkeling (mostly from boat) and an utter lack of crowds.

First of all, to get here you fly from St Maarten on a small plane for a short trip. Then you fly straight at the island for far too long before they turn 90 degrees at the last possible minute to land on the shortest commercial runway in the world. To say it is sketchy is an understatement. This picture is the plane heading toward the cliffs at pretty close range, just before the turn. Was a smooth ride and landing though. Very good pilots.

We’ve done two solid hikes (Mt Scenery pictures below) since we’ve arrived and have a few more on our list.  I’m not sure Tom is excited about the longest of them but he will go anyway. :)  Being the top of a volcano, it is very very steep, challenging terrain. And even though we live at a high altitude, I think our advantage is taken away by the heat and humidity here. It’s breathtakingly beautiful and well worth the effort to climb up!

Now, some pictures.

Breakfast our first day below. All the houses are white with green shutters and red roofs. 

When I say all, I mean all. It’s actually very charming.

Chickens on the Mt Scenery trail. This path was straight up, it was actually pretty difficult. Took about 50 minutes but the summit is a cloud forest and true to its name, was socked in.  We only got peeks of sun.  Tons of wild goats and chickens on this island!

One of the few times the clouds (sort of) parted while we were we up there!

Tom heading up the trail in a spot that had steps. They did not make it any easier!

View of Windwardside below. This was about halfway up the hike. 

All in all it was a beautiful hike. Well worth the effort. Take plenty of water and the path gets missy and slick up near the top. So good footwear and poles if you are more comfortable with them!  Enjoy!

I'm baaaaack...

Hello everyone!  I know I don't have many readers that stop by here and that is A-OK.  I've realized that in the 2 years I've not been blogging, I've missed out on recording and reliving our memories of travels and everyday life.  So, I'm going to endeavor to start this bad boy up again.  Wish me luck.  Here are some highlights from our last 2 years:

Down Under - Australia - Tasmania and the Sydney area.  OK, so Tasmania has THE cutest wildlife.  We loved this island state and I definitely want to make it back someday (soon).  The first highlight for me was our night feeding tour at Bonorong Wildlife Sanctuary (https://www.bonorong.com.au/), not to be missed if you are in the Hobart area.  Also, Cradle Mountain - where we got to come very very close to my favorite Tasmanian creature - wombats!

Tom and his wallaby:

Melissa and her kangaroos:

Next destination - Antarctica!  Yes, we made it to the 7th continent and it was amazing.  We spent about 2 weeks on a boat exploring the Antarctic coast - I successfully crossed the Drake Passage twice without tossing my cookies (thanks to modern pharmacology).  We also spent some time hiking in Patagonia:

Mountaineering in Antarctica.  Spigot Peak, complete with penguins!

Unfortunately in much sadder news, we lost our Ellie Mae to cancer later in 2018.  She was such a sweet girl, we'll never find another one like you, Ellie. We miss you...

Ellie Mae did get a kitten while she was still with us, and he, after a nasty fall (and skewer onto a grounding rod) from our high roof, is still with us and loving life, meet Jethro - who is much larger than this now:

We also moved to the mountains!  We now live at about 7300ft and are absolutely loving it.  We aren't sure why we took so long to get out of the 'burbs!  Now, our backyard looks like this:

A new pup joined our family - meet Daisy, 2/3 pit bull, 1/3 bull dog - aka a "Bully Pit".  She is a sweet girl and so so so adorable.  Welcome, Daisy Maisy, or better known as "Piglet":

We also snuck away for a couple of weeks exploring Japan and the Philippines (Bohol Island to be exact).  We saw snow monkeys in Nagano and tarsiers in Bohol.  We had a little scooter accident but had a great time anyway!

We've also done TONS of hiking and skiing, I've hit all the trails around our new home quite hard with my running shoes, we've fostered multiple dogs through Circle 2 Rescue (https://www.circle2rescue.com/ - currently fostering "Malone") and we've added 4 more chickens to our flock, bringing our hen count up to 8!  More to come...