Exploring Dominica
Stream
Darrell Jackson and Sarah Barnes
Wed 16 Apr 2014 23:21
Due to the slight stiffness in our legs, from the hike to Boiling Lake, we decided a gentle day was required. Sarah had been up stretching during the night and at one point Darrell had awoken to find her with her legs stretched out touching the coach roof. So Friday found us on the bus for the short trip into Roseau, the capital of Dominica. First stop was customs to put Adam onto our crew list. Unfortunately, the custom official was in the middle of dealing with a drugs bust, so we had a bit of delay. Then Darrell had to fill in a new set of forms and add in extra passport information for each of us to satisfy the official. Once completed we went to explore the delights of Roseau.
It is an interesting capital with picturesque balconies and traditional housing. The buildings are a mix of well maintained, brightly coloured houses often next door to virtually derelict ones, which is typical of the Caribbean towns we have visited. Although, the cruise ships dock here nearly every day there is not the usual strip of duty free shops and souvenir shops. There is a large local veg market, with a huge range of fruits and vegetables grown by the vendors themselves as well as some craft stalls, selling soaps and jewellery, but for once no T shirts!
We found a nice cafe with wifi, so we could catch up with the world over lunch. Darrell and Adam tried the local ginger juice, while Sarah stuck with grapefruit.
We had to get our weekly visitor pass to the National Park sites. We had been unable to get it before going to the Boiling Lake and had promised we would sort it before our next trip out. So we headed for the Botanical Garden, where the offices were meant to be. We found the National Park building and enjoyed the displays and information, but no-one was there. We wandered around and asked a few people, who kept sending us back to the building to no avail. Until finally, out from the trees came the warden, who informed us we were in the wrong place and sent us off to the Forestry office in the old citrus plantation building. Luckily, they were still open so we could purchase the passes. Despite explaining to the lady that we needed them backdated she stamped them for two days in the future. Mind she was a bit confused, as when she was showing us directions on a map she said her offices were in the Botanical Gardens.
Trafalgar Falls
After a lazy morning on the boat and a swim, we joined Octavius and the Canadian family for a hike up to Trafalgar falls. We waited until after lunch so the Cruise ship people would have left it to return to their pink gins on board and it would be quiet for us to enjoy. As we drove up through the hills, we had to take different routes as roads are being repaired from the Christmas floods. On Christmas Eve there was such a deluge on several islands through the Caribbean, St Lucia was possibly the hit the worse, but Dominica had several roads and bridges washed away. They have spent the last few month crossing them with pieces of wood placed over the gaps, but the elections are due soon so there is a flurry of road maintenance!
Trafalgar Falls was virtually deserted when we arrived and we had an easy walk along the tourist trail to the first pools. The cruise ship people are allowed no further, but Octavius took us over the boulders to the falls so we could swim in the cool water pool below it. On the way back we went into the hot spring pools by the path,that interconnect through tunnels in the rock and feel very secluded.
Champagne Bay
On Sunday afternoon, we dinghied along the coast a couple of miles towards Soufriere to a bay called Champagne. Warm bubbles ascend from the sea bottom, sparkling in the sunlight. The snorkelling is good over shallow coral and boulders in the amazing thermal spring. The sea bottom is warm and you can hear the bubbles as they escape. There was a good array of fish and we had timed it perfectly, as the party of cruise ship snorkelers were just finishing as we arrived and we had the bay to ourselves.