Barbados is a popular wedding destination, which also makes it a great place to celebrate Valentine’s Day. Whether you want to walk along a romantic beach or treat yourselves to an expensive dinner for two, there’s always something to do on this day. Everywhere you turn, the island is decked out in red and white. Today’s photo is a heart spotted at Lantern’s Mall on the South Coast. Happy Valentine’s Day!
Cane cutting isn’t on the usual list of tourist attractions, but it’s so rare to see people cutting cane by hand now (they tend to use big combine harvesters instead) that it seemed worth a photo. This exercise took place over the space of a week or so on the outskirts of St. George.
Welchman Hall Gully is one of the Barbados’ environmentally protected places. It has been owned by the island’s National Trust since the 1960s. It gets its name from the fact that it was once part of a plantation owned by a Welshman. I enjoyed the peaceful, natural surroundings as we made the trek through the gully. The guided tour lasted approximately one hour. This attraction is fun for the whole family and I asked my 9 year old daughter for her perspective on what makes it fun for kids. Here’s what she said:
I think kids like it because they trek through the gully and it’s quite interesting. They get to learn about different things (such as what plants are good for you and which ones are bad. Plants that you never knew did anything do a completely different job from what you expected) and have fun at the same time.
The cave at the entrance is quite interesting – it’s cool that you can hike in there and see what’s in a cave. It’s kind of rough and uneven and when you’re in there you can see palm trees and sometimes bats and if you go high enough up a slope you can see up to the sky.
People can also see down into the cave from a little place at the lookout point. The lookout point’s view is very pretty and sometimes you can hear people singing from a nearby church. There’s a long bench where you can sit and rest if you are tired after the hike. You can see lots of hills, the sky and clouds and you can see the sea and houses.
When you’re hiking inside the gully, it’s quite pretty because of all the flowers. There are plants there that you can’t see anywhere else and there are signs up everywhere telling you about historical things that happened in the gully or affected the gully. The muki puki tree (the real name is the macaw palm) is covered with spikes and they hurt if you get them in your hand or anywhere. But it’s quite interesting to see how big the spikes can get.
In one particular place there was tons of bamboo growing out wide and there was a cocoa tree. In Nutmeg Grove there are tons of nutmegs
and you
are allowed to keep them sometimes.
They showed the back entrance to Harrisons Cave and that was kind of cool if you didn’t know that the two of them were next to each other. There were the remains of lots of huge stalactites and a few stalagmites. One or two joined and made a kind of pillar. The people there are really kind to all the animals including millipedes and the only thing they let you get rid of are African snails.
My favourite part was just walking through the flowers with the cool air blowing at you on the way back. If you haven’t been to Welchman Hall Gully, I think you should go and I give it a 5 star rating.
See more photos of Welchman Hall Gully (taken by my daughter) below:
If you’re looking for a great way to spend a sunny morning, think about trying paddleboarding. I tried it for the first time this past weekend with Paddle Barbados. A paddleboard is like a big surfboard and you make it move by using a single paddle to push the water away. It looks easy, but it isn’t.
I’d often seen paddleboarders whizzing by down at Browne’s Beach on a Sunday morning, so when our friends proposed the outing, I was game. Jason Cole did a great job of explaining how to:
He also explained a number of moves for making the board do what you wanted, such as executing a 90 degree turn which I never managed to do successfully.
Then we set off from Pebbles Beach towards Browne’s Beach. I’d predicted that I’d be the first to fall off and I was. The only trouble is that I kept on falling off, practically every time I stood up. The trick, it seems, is to keep looking towards the horizon and paddle without looking down. Look down and you fall. It turned out I was looking down even when I thought I had my nose pointed towards our destination.
I made slow progress to Browne’s, occasionally managing to stand for a few strokes, but mostly kneeling. After a short rest, it was time to head back. This was harder, because we were paddling into the wind, not very easy for novices. I knelt, ran out of steam, got a tow (from Jason and my 9 year old daughter, who turned out to be a natural), then carried on again. I managed to salvage some dignity and stand up for last few yards back to Pebbles.
It may not sound like it, but I had a lot of fun, and I’d definitely try it again. However, the aftermath has taught me that paddleboarding for two hours (not bad for BD$50) is too much for a novice. Every muscle in my body ached the next day and truth to tell, I’m still recovering. But it was worth it – can’t wait to do it again!
the bridges after which it’s named, visit the Parliament Museum and National Heroes Square, catch a catamaran ride and more.
Bridgetown, the capital of Barbados, is the best place to do duty-free shopping, see
