A quick tour of the island

We thought we’d be heading straight to the guest house but no, Derek has decided to take us on an impromptu tour of the island!

This turned out to be a very good idea. The weather was very good on the day we landed – and being at the airport, we were already at some of the island extremes which would have taken a long time to get to.

Within a few minutes we saw a wirebird – the Saint Helena plover, which is the island’s national bird and only found on Saint Helena. Not just that, but it was a mother and baby. They were the last wirebirds we saw the whole week!

The entire island is up – down – up – down and you can get some great shots of the capital, Jamestown, from lots of places on the approach.

We drove around up to Rupert’s Bay, and then to the top of Jacob’s Ladder, where we faked some photos of us climbing it (not our idea!) Maybe next time we will climb all 699 steps.

We then stopped at the cricket ground! It’s situated at Prince Andrew School – we’d barely read the sign before Derek said “we’re changing the name of that soon!” His son was playing in a match there, and Derek was also keeping a real time check on the score on an Indian cricket app. It’s the only sports ground on the island – cricket pitch for six months each year, football pitch for the other six months.

We finally made it to our very comfortable accommodation, and sat out in the beautiful garden just in time to see the sun setting over the south Atlantic.