Hiking into the Quill Volcano, Statia

Seaduced
John & Jane Craven
Sun 11 Dec 2011 23:17
After yesterday's weather disaster, it didn't get much better,  although in the afternoon we managed to get out for a couple of hours, and we were stuck in due to rain at night, again, we awoke this morning to glorious blue skies - fantastic!
We had decided that, weather permitting, we were going to go hiking in the Statia National Park today.  The island is divided into two parts, the northern hills and the southern volcano.  Both were separate small islands until the lava flow from the volcano joined the two together creating the flatter area in between.  This was over 2000 years ago and the volcano has been dormant since about 400AD.  The Quill, an anglicised version of the dutch word for 'pit' stands about 600m above sea level at the south end of the island. Various eruptions through the centuries threw out tons of earth which were then re-deposited on earth and created the volcanic cone.
There is a trail which leads to Mazinga, the top of the crater rim, and a further trail which takes you 273m down into the crater where a rainforest has developed due to the fertile volcanic soil.  The first part of the trail takes you through the town and up a path through the trees to the rim.  There were loads of soldier crabs along the way, these were easy to spot as they seem to throw themselves at you as you walk past!  All they do is climb up the hillsides and roll back down - a bit of a dull life once the novelty has worn off!  These crabs don't have a hard shell and have to find one for protection. There are also lots of lizards, snakes and scorpions, none of which we saw.  There is a wide variety of different types of plants as you climb, there are about 4 different eco-systems on the way to the rim.
While the climb up to the crater rim was fairly easy, if a little steep in places, the descent down into the crater was much harder.  At the start there is a set of stairs which lulls you into a false sense of security, as soon after you are climbing down over large boulders - the National Park has marked out the route by placing ropes along the path to help you get down.  Once down though, the bottom is flat and full of trees and plants, oddly there are a lot of chickens and cockerels there as well - we were surprised to find one at the top of the rim, and even more surprised to find them at the bottom.  There are also a number of goats, which graze freely in the crater.  The whole walk took about 4 hours after which we were ready to drop with exhaustion, but fortunately we found a nice beach side ice cream shop with sun-loungers outside to rest our weary selves!!  Now we have seen what is at the top of the volcano, tomorrow we are going diving to see what lies beneath the sea....


  'Seaduced' at anchor in Oranjestaad.  In the background you can see our next port of call - the tiny island of Saba.  You can also see the oil terminal and a couple of the many tankers anchored here.

 On of the soldier crabs - they look quite like sea crabs, with similar styled claws

  Taking a rest at the edge of the crater rim, before descending down to the rainforest below

 John striding down to the crater

 Me being a bit more cautious and making good use of one of the walking sticks left on the trail by previous users

  An enormous silk cotton tree at the crater base

 The crater base