Our first day on the island we decided to use a guide. Ours was called ‘Special’. He was excellent and even took us to his house which was in a tree. He also filled our bags with fruits and vegetables from his garden and the surrounding areas and showed us which rivers we could drink the water from. We went for an amazing walk through the rainforest, learning about the plants and animals, then it was to Milton Waterfall which was such an amazing sight. Of course we all had a dip…..

Later in the day we went up the Indian river. This was a wonderful thing to do. The tree roots and the whole atmosphere was like being in a fairy tale.

‘Special’ took us to his local bar where we were very well looked after. The landlady (‘Auntie’) shared her cooking tips (giving us various ingredients too!) and also told us about some local hot springs. We were very intrigued by these and asked around further…. most locals did not know about them, or had never been, but we managed to find enough people along the way to nose our way through and find the hot springs!! Here we had our first bath since Dec 21st and the amazing thing was how hot they were- perfect bath temperature!! It was quite a treck to get there and we did have to carry the children through various swamps but it was totally worth it.

We walked up to Fort Shirley which has been beautifully restored. The children loved playing on the cannons and we managed to fit in some family snorkelling around the base of the ‘Cabrits’ afterwards. The water here is lovely and clear.

For the first time since our trip began we found our own private beach which was great fun. The afternoon was spent swimming, snorkelling and playing. Alice seems to have grown gills and is hell bent on teaching herself to swim. Here she managed to stay afloat for a few seconds which was all very exciting for us all. So of course now she thinks she is Sharon Davies and I have to force her into armbands for swimming off the boat which means many tantrums!!