Easter Weekend
Arion's West Indian Adventure
Hermione & Douglas Pattison
Sun 3 Apr 2016 00:41
| After a couple of lovely, but very windy nights at Peter Island, we decided that we needed a little bit of refuge in the form of Road Town, Tortola. This is not the most beautiful location, and we would have liked to have gone into Nanny Cay, however due to a regatta, there was no room at the inn!! Village Cay Marina in Road Town was nevertheless a good location while we waited for the breeze to drop. On Easter Saturday we got wind that there was a ‘family fun day’ at the cruise ship dock. Ever keen to get stuck in, we went along in the afternoon. In typical Caribbean style, it was a DJ playing unbelievably loud music, and a bouncy castle. Oh no, we thought- the children think this is going to be much more than it is……………. Actually we all had a great afternoon as we payed $3 for their turn on the bouncy castle, which they bounced on for nearly 2 hours, and met another lovely family with children, older than ours, who looked after Arthur and Alice, playing with them! After a morning swim on Easter day it was time for the Arion Easter egg hunt. Luckily all the eggs were found before they melted in the heat. I then painted the children’s faces with our now expanded kit (thank you Grandma!) and then it was off to the Races!! ….. Royal Ascot, it certainly was not! This was definitely a different day to the races back in the UK, but fun all the same. We arrived very early, as the taxi driver had told us that there would be ‘loads going on’ up at the racecourse (he just wanted our business before the rush I think!!) When we arrived, there was nothing going on, however we made the best of it and wandered over to the stables to have a look at the horses which the children enjoyed. I asked some of the owners/ jockeys / whoever “any tips?”. They all looked a bit blank, and I initially thought that perhaps they were just a bit spaced out (the aroma around the yard was rather pungent!!) but it transpired that they do not have official betting at these races. No bookies. What?! ….. what you do is you find another person, and you make a private bet with that person. Unfortunately it often results in the losers doing a runner and there are lots of fights, so we decided that we would not be placing any bets! The race track itself is pretty well maintained, but right opposite the finish line, where most people would be taking photographs of the horses, is the local rubbish dump. Honestly! The grandstand looked a bit dodgy and after a while we decided to move away from it, as the music was so loud that big chunks of rusty steel were falling down from the roof!!! Each race only had 3 horses in it, but despite all of this we had a really fun day, and met up with the lovely family from the day before.    |