Dunelm1's Blog

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Leave Newquay at 3.15 Monday 14th Feb., night at Gatwick and fly out on Tuesday 15th Feb 10.30 am

Time for a quick swim in the sea before sunset??

Feb 17th       Arrived safely and haven’t done much so far if you don’t count beach, sea, sun and wine. Photos to follow when the internet connection here  hopefully improves. Dining on the beach tonight. Great news from Wendy about Paul’s job.

Nothing much has changed so go to last years Barbados page for a taste of the sunshine!

     The first sunset.  

  7.30 am  Sandy Lane Beach – the start of our morning beach walk

  Halfway point on the morning walk

  End of Payne’s Bay – time to turn around and head back for breakfast

Today Sat 19th was the big day for Holetown Carnival to celebrate the first landing in Barbados  in 1627

Special guests at the Carnival this year were the Harringay Youth Steel Band together with the Mayor of Haringay who is a Barbadian

The Festival is to commemorate the landing of the British in 1627 and claim the island in the name of King James I. The town was called Jamestown and the parish named St James.  King James actually died in 1625 so this illustrates the communication difficulties in those days. Really the town should have been Charlestown and the parish St Charles (all the parishes here are Saints). The town was later renamed Holetown but the church and parish remain James.

Great day today – Sunday 20th – went to the Almond Beach Village about 5 miles up the road for a day on the beach. Fantastic BBQ with Mali Mali (fish) and great swimming. Followed by a spectacular sunset:

Feb 23rd   Had a notable visit to the Barbados Wildlife Park and then to Harrisons Cave – a remarkable recently renovated attraction. Good for a day with quite a lot of rain.

We were 180 ft below the ground in an electric tram – quite a surprise for what is a lot of the time a third world country.

Feb 25th  Went into Bridgetown by local bus to the accompaniment of loud reggie music and packed local population – quite an experience !!   No pictures  inside bus – unable to extract camera from pocket due to extreme crowding

Quite a bit of rain the last couple of days but we have found plenty to do and there has been a sporting bonanza. Managed to find a pub right on the beach – together with about 300 others to watch England v France. Great atmosphere and have never seen a crowd stand up and sing the National anthem like that. There was slight confusion when England appeared to score another try – BBC America were so busy showing replays that the fact that it was disallowed owing to a previous forward pass was not very clear.

Then on Sunday I watched 90 mins of the cricket on text reports. Jean is used to it but everyone else thought I was a bit mad. Neverthless it turned out to be one of the best ever games and my eccentricity paid off.

We had a wonderful visit to the Eastmonds (whose son worked at my old dental practice and tragically died in December) and got a flavour of life in Barbados from the residents point of view. Turned out that they have been involved with AFS (which is how Jean and I met) so we had lots in common. They have actually hosted 3 students for a year. Some pics of their house:

     The banana tree section of their garden

Their house

John, Geoff and Victor

Jean, Victor, John, Christine and Nora

only 2 more of these!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wednesday – another busy day Took local bus into Bridgetown = had to stand all the wayand hung on for dear life! Then walked around docks and on to Browne’s Beach, a stunning bay with clear water and white sand.

Browne's Beach