Whoa! We’re Going To Barbados

The summer of 1975 was a time of upheaval in the life of 13 year old Neil. I’d just lost my dad which is, of course, a major life changing event to come to terms with. I was a slightly awkward adolescent that had only recently become interested in aircraft, a hobby that would go on to shape my life. It was a long hot summer, the first of two in a row, and our planned holiday to Italy had naturally been cancelled when my dad died. Our holiday to Sorrento would have seen us fly to Naples from Manchester in a Dan-Air DH Comet. I never did get to fly on a De Havilland Comet and if there is an afterlife I’ll be having words with my dad about it. Anyway, in that hot summer of ’75 there was a song that reached Number One in the charts called ‘Barbados’ by a couple of English blokes that called themselves Typically Tropical. It told the tale of a West Indian London bus driver who couldn’t wait to get back to Barbados, in the Sunny Caribbean Sea. What’s more, it had significant aviation content with announcements from Captain Tobias Willcock of Coconut Airways. That, along with its outrageous catchiness, has made it stick in my mind for the past fifty years and I will refer to the Caribbean Sea as the Sunny Caribbean Sea to this day and have probably done so in previous blogs. Here’s the song if you would like to be reminded of it.

Why do I bring this up now I hear you ask. Well, some fifty-one years later we went to Barbados. Whoa! The story really began nine or ten months ago. Elaine and I were approaching our 40th wedding anniversary and felt we’d rather like to go on holiday somewhere with the kids. We had done this a couple of years ago when we had a week in Mexico over the New Year and enjoyed it so what better excuse than to do it again. With daughter Rebecca living in the far west of Canada we started looking for somewhere equidistant for us to travel. Barbados fitted the bill almost exactly (Troon is 200 miles closer to Barbados Airport than Victoria, less than 5% of the total distance). We were initially a bit hesitant about visiting the Caribbean having had a family holiday in St Lucia in 2001. Whilst there was nothing wrong with the place, we didn’t really enjoy it. I’ve been to Antigua in the meantime for the cricket – Calypso Collapso – which was great (apart from the actual cricket) but I don’t think there was quite enough there to keep us occupied for ten days. Barbados, however, came with the recommendation of a couple of friends of ours who have been there on multiple occasions. We found that we could hire a villa that could comfortably fit our party of seven and booked it for the end of April just as the Caribbean peak period had ended. That saved us quite a bit of money. We then booked the flights, found some flights for Rebecca and Harry that arrived at a similar time to ours and booked them too. All we had to do was pay the accommodation balance, sort out some other bits and pieces and turn up at Glasgow Airport on the 19th April, the actual day of our Ruby Wedding anniversary. Our son Nicholas and his friend Mollie were there to join us on the 07:30 flight. That flight got us to Heathrow where we had to transfer from Terminal 5 to Terminal 3, meet up with our friend Caryn who was joining us on this adventure and catch flight BA255 to Bridgetown Grantley Adams Airport. Meanwhile, Rebecca and partner Harry flew overnight from Victoria to Toronto and then onto Bridgetown beating us by an hour and a half. Part of booking the villa early was complimentary VIP arrival service which meant someone met us off the flight and guided us through priority lanes at immigration and customs which was great as the airport was a bit busy at the time and we were last off the plane. The VIP arrival people also made sure we met up with Rebecca and Harry and called the minibus taxi we had pre-arranged to collect us and take us to the accommodation. Charlene, whose taxi had an impressive gear stick, duly appeared and a 45 minute drive took us to our villa.

Villa Calliaqua with pool cottage. A magnificent base for a Barbados holiday.

Villa? Yes, we had hired a villa though it could also be described as a big house. When we were planning this break we had considered hotels, all-inclusive or not, Airbnbs and any other type of accommodation you can think of with the possible exception of tents. We came across a number of companies that offered villas with pools. They looked fantastic as they always do on the websites and we were severely tempted to get one of them. They are not cheap but they accommodate a lot of people. What’s more, they all appeared to come with staff. Some provided you with a cook and housekeeper. Slightly superior properties gave you a chef and butler. We narrowed it down to two, one of each and in the end plumped for the former. It wasn’t because it was a bit cheaper, welcome though that was, it was down to the fact it had a fresh water pool rather than saltwater. The villa was called Calliaqua and was situated on Sugar Hill Resort near the town of Holetown, midway up the west coast of Barbados. We booked it through a British based agent called Hammerton Barbados which as the name may suggest, specialises in Barbados villas. They answered our many queries but even so, we had a bit of trepidation when we arrived. Would the villa be ok? How would it work with the staff? What would be for dinner when we got there? We needn’t have worried of course. The villa had five bedrooms. Well, to be precise, the villa had four bedrooms and a cottage by the pool that can, and was, used as a fifth. Prices are tiered for three, four or five bedroom occupancy. Rather than give you the full brochure description I’ll give you a link to the listing on the Hammerton website as they do it better than me. I will only add that we were not in the least bit disappointed. Villa Calliaqua.

Al fresco dining on the verandah, the balcony and the view from it.

Garden visitor.

The ‘staff’ were there to greet us. I’m going to stop calling them ‘staff’ from now on as that does them a disservice. The idea of having people ‘to do’ for you might make you feel a bit uneasy, harking back to colonial days. Our ‘staff’ were people and wonderful people at that. Celeste and her daughter Anika were the housekeepers. Janelle was the cook. All three worked eight hours per day, six days a week based in the kitchen and utility rooms which got rather hot. On some days we altered the hours to give them some extra time off which was the least they deserved. Housekeeping included getting your laundry done daily – had we realised we could have packed much lighter! – whilst Janelle would produce three hearty meals a day if we wanted, breakfast, lunch and dinner. She would have shopped for the food too had we wanted her to though after the first visit we tended to visit the local Massy’s supermarket ourselves to get the supplies. We decided on the menu when we first met her. This was basically for her to cook local dishes as she saw fit. Local dishes are good! We did have some requests like pizza for lunch one day and pancakes (crepes) for breakfast but most of the time we left it up to her and were always more than happy with what she made for us. Tipping culture is a thing out there and there were suggested amounts, purely at our discretion you understand. However, we had no hesitation in generously tipping these lovely ladies at the end of our stay. They had made a good holiday great and deserved it.

We were there for ten days. Just what do you get up to for ten days in Barbados? Naturally, a lot of time is spent relaxing either on a golden, sandy beach or by the pool. The villa’s pool was really good so we tended to sty there for chill time. Chill is a bit of an oxymoron of course, Barbados is just 13 degrees of latitude from the equator, right in the tropical zone and has temperatures to match. Never too hot though. During our stay the daytime temperature was in the low 30s celsius. That heat did generate clouds so the sunshine wasn’t uninterrupted but we only suffered rain on a couple of occasions. Peak time for Barbados is from Christmas to Easter where the temperatures are a degree or two lower and the humidity is less but no matter when you go it is going to be warm. We were there at the end of April, taking advantage of off-peak prices but still before the rainy season or the humidity got oppressive. Sitting in the sun, or indeed the shade along with mucking about in the pool is all well and good but doesn’t make for an interesting blog so it is just as well we did some other stuff too.

Compared with my previous experience of the Caribbean, just two whole islands, Barbados has a plethora of activities that can occupy your time between cocktails. Having a hire car is a good idea. There is a good network of buses on the island but schedules and frequency are a secret only the locals will know so we decided car hire was best. We needed one to get the shopping anyway. In fact as there were seven of us we got two. With them you can discover the rest of the island. We ventured out to the east coast to a place called Bathsheba which has the Andromeda Botanical Gardens to visit as well as an interesting beach with sea stacks and rock pools. Going in the sea here is a big no-no unless you have a surfboard and are a competent surfer. However, you can bath in the rock pools at low tide which we intended to do but didn’t. There’s a nice restaurant for lunch too called Zemi.

Andromeda Botanic Gardens with a couple of roses (Elaine and Caryn), some pretty flowers and me holding up a Bearderd Fig, the tree which gave Barbados its name.

Bathsheba Beach with Harry the king of the rocks.

Not quite Hopewell Rocks on the Bay of Biscay perhaps but a pretty decent effort with a bonus beach dog.

At the very top of the island is Animal Flower Cave. This is a sea cave that you can visit (for a fee) and it too has a rock pool. This time some of us did take the plunge which was pretty cool, both literally and figuratively. The cave gets it strange name from the anemones that grow in the pools that react to stimulation in what’s, presumably, an animal like manner. Sadly there’s not many of them left, probably because tourists like us go there and keep prodding them although the current guardians of the cave are supposedly taking more care of it than the original owners.

Welchman Hall Gully is situated in the middle of the island next to the highest point in Barbados. The gully is a collapsed limestone cave that forms a valley in which our guide, Ashae, told us all about the flora that occupied it. Not all is native, the site having been developed back in colonial days into another botanical garden by a plantation owner’s wife who presumably lived in Welchman Hall. It now belongs to the Barbados version of the National Trust and was a lot more interesting than a load of trees should be. That was mainly down to the guide but also because it is a home to a couple of troupes of Green African monkeys. These monkeys were brought over in colonial times as a food source for the plantation workers but no one told the monkeys that and they are now found all over the island. We enjoyed seeing them – who doesn’t like a monkey – but we needn’t have gone anywhere for monkey action as we got them in the villa garden later. Monkeys or not, Welchman Hall Gully is worth the trip along some very rough roads.

Welchman Hall Gully Guide Ashae was also the group shot photographer.

Botanical stuff including nutmeg, not a native plant.

Welchman Green African Monkeys, not a native animal but don’t tell them that.

If you are looking for a bit more of white knuckle experience there are a couple of options. We passed on the zip wire but three of us did take the chance to indulge in a bit of off-roading in a Dune Buggy with a company called Off Road Fury. This takes place in the south of the island near Brighton Farmers Market of which more later. We had two buggies between the three of us and we able to swap between driver, passenger and solo at a number of stops as we sped at alarming speed (up to 65kmh if you push down on the accelerator really hard) through sugar cane fields and, surprisingly, past the nodding donkeys of oil wells. I can’t emphasise how much fun I found it and I believe Harry and Mollie felt the same. They even have a break to have a super soaker water fight for no other reason than they can.

The obligatory ‘no helmet but yes balaclava’ shots.

The oilfields of Barbados and three Super Soaker Assassins.

It might seem a little tame in the video, believe me it isn’t!

For a more traditional tourist attraction, at least for your average Brit, you can head to the north of the island and visit the St Nicholas Abbey Heritage Railway. Nicholas Abbey isn’t an abbey, it is an old colonial house connected to the Cumberbatch family of Benedict fame. That isn’t really interesting enough to visit in itself so they went and built a heritage railway in what was once a sugar cane plantation and is hoping to become one again. It isn’t original though a railway did once run from Bridgetown up the east coast of the island. The new ‘heritage’ line tells the story of that and was built to the same 2ft 6in gauge as the original. A 100 year old German built steam locomotive hauls three open sided carriages rather slowly to a nice lookout point before returning and then heading around a newly completed loop amongst the former sugar cane fields. They have two steam locos and a diesel back up which was required for later tours when ours conked out as we were approaching the end of the journey. As part of the quite pricey ticket you get to wander through the downstairs of the house and to visit the rum distillery, tasting the different rums produced which were pretty foul neat but I’m sure they’d make a decent cocktail.

St Nicholas Abbey Heritage Railway and St Nicholas himself on the footplate giving the whistle a toot.

St Nicholas Abbey and one of the two rooms we saw.

Gin thingy and more importantly, the station cats.

Arguably the best trip in Barbados is to take a catamaran ride to see the turtles. Turtles are a big thing in Barbados with murals of them all over the place. You can sometimes see them laying their eggs in the sand and those eggs hatching though we didn’t. The catamaran trips, of which there are several companies to choose from, almost (but not quite) guarantee turtle sighting and supply snorkelling equipment for you to go and join them in the Sunny Caribbean Sea. Just three of us decided to go on the trip, the others slightly worried about the barf potential of the voyage. As it turned out, the only real chance of getting sick was from imbibing too much of the included alcohol with another beer or rum punch arriving just as you’d finished the last one. The company we used was called Silver Moon who have three or four vessels, ours was Silver Moon 3. The passenger limit is 12 or 13 and the three of us (me, Nicholas and Mollie) were joined by a party of Canadian ladies from Ontario, a Scottish couple making their first venture out of their all-inclusive resort and a mum and her two teenage kids from New Hampshire. Transport to the port in Bridgetown is provided. We had opted for the twilight cruise which was departed in the afternoon, arriving back in Bridgetown shortly after the sun had set. We headed north under sail up the west coast, passing Holetown and our villa on the way, and after an hour or so we stopped and those who wanted to donned the snorkelling gear and jumped into the ocean. Now, I’m not a very confident swimmer and hate the taste of salt water. I had, however, been enjoying beer and rum punch which was enough to break my better judgement and armed with an inflatable lifejacket to stop me from sinking I followed the rest into the briney. In total there was one crew member with some bits of fish, twelve self supporting passengers, one big girl’s blouse in a life vest and two turtles named Bobby and Christina in the same bit of the Sunny Caribbean Sea. I quickly realised that I most certainly wasn’t going to sink and began to enjoy swimming with Bobby and Christina. The pair are presumably regular visitors to the catamaran tours, hence the names. It was all rather special though I don’t suppose everyone would approve. The turtles seemed happy enough though and weren’t going to miss a free dinner. Following the snorkelling we were served with a Bajan dinner that had been prepared on board. Some tours do this, others provide snacks. Then we headed back south under power as the sun set over the Sunny Caribbean Sea whilst the rum punch was flowing once more.

Silver Moon 3 is over there somewhere and just to prove we were under sail, here’s a mast selfie.

Me being a jessie in my Mae West and Mollie bobbing around unaided.

Bobby and Christina or maybe Christina and Bobby.

Mollie was our Jaques Cousteau.

Enjoying the sunset over the Sunny Caribbean Sea*.

Of course, it wouldn’t be the Caribbean if there was no golden, palm tree edged beaches. We only visited a couple though, the one to the north of Holetown and another one at Carlisle Bay near Bridgetown. Both were golden and glorious, the palm trees were evident and beach bars provided the required amounts of hydration. If you are a beach person I imagine they will be right up your alley. Whilst we can appreciate the aesthetic of a beach we aren’t really beach people, possibly because right up your alley is where the sand gets. The young ‘uns lasted longer there than the old ‘uns and as an aside, on the way back from Carlisle Bay they stopped to get a photo outside the birthplace of Rhianna. She’s a singer you know, and the most famous Barbados citizen after Gary Sobers. In fact, Gary has probably been relegated into second place by now.

The golden sands of Porter Beach near Holetown.

Savvy on the Bay, part of Carlisle Bay near Bridgetown. Rebecca and Harry go for a dip, Elaine, Caryn and I go for a walk.

The younger members of the party at Rihanna’s house. She wasn’t in.

There are other attractions but they will have to wait until we go back. Instead I’ll talk about eating out. There isn’t much to say though as we tended to eat at the villa as Janelle was a remarkably good cook. It meant a few visits to Massey’s Supermarket but saved us hunting out a restaurant every day. We did eat out a few times though. We went for breakfast at Brighton Farmers Market. It’s been going for 25 years now so is a bit of an institution with folk turning up from all around the island every Saturday morning. It’s mainly food outlets with a few craft stores. I can’t say I was overly impressed but some folk love it. A popular place for lunch is Caboose, situated in Speightstown a few miles up the coast from where we were staying. The fun thing is it is a boat that has been dragged over a small seawall, across the road and onto a bit of park land where it has been turned into an unlikely cafe. They only really do fish cutters (sandwich by any other name) along with beer and rum punch but it is good and a genuine Bajan experience at a relatively modest price. Another institution is the Oistins Fish Fry. This takes place, fittingly, in Oistins on the south coast and on a Friday evening is basically a big party with a number of fish cafes selling, well, fish. (Non-fish dishes are available) One of the stalls seemed particularly popular so we ignored it and went to another one called Fred’s as we liked the name. We had our dinners, mainly fish. I went for dolphin. Now, before you send an angry posse round to my house to protest, it wasn’t actual dolphin, it is a local fish called Mahi Mahi. It was rather good. The other place we ate out was La Cabane. This is a beach bar and restaurant that is situated down the coast towards Bridgetown. It has its own stretch of beach though not really, all beaches are public in Barbados, and is a great place to watch the sun go down and get those all important instagram photos. As a restaurant it doesn’t have an extensive menu but the food is quality. We recommend going but if you do take a torch. It was an interesting experience eating in the dark.

Caboose. Shame to waste an abandoned boat.

Good customer service and a fully loaded tuna cutter.

Oistins Fish Fry at Fred’s Bar and Restaurant.

Not the most colourful food you will see but damned tasty. Mahi Mahi on the right.

La Cabane has a bit of a swing thing going on.

Including this one over a beach which provides good portrait opportunities.

I would show you the food but it was a bit dark by the time it arrived.

Practical information:

Money – the currency is the Barbados Dollar which is fixed to the US dollar at a rate of 1.98:1, in effect two Barbados to one US. Everywhere accepts either currency at the 2:1 rate which makes things nice a simple. Electronic payment is very widespread, though it’s a good idea to have some cash for the odd place that doesn’t have the facility and for leaving tips. There are ATMs in the supermarkets.

Driving – Brits will feel pretty much at home here. They drive right hand cars on the left hand side of roads full of pot holes. Actually, the roads are in a pretty bad state, especially the minor ones. The main roads are ok but road markings are largely faded which makes night driving a bit tricky. It’s definitely worth getting a car though if you want to get around and see the island.

Arrival – Bridgetown Grantley Adams Airport in on the south coast. It’s not big and can get a bit crowded when a number of long-haul flights pitch up at the same time. The VIP Arrival service which we were offered as a special promotion by the Villa’s agent is great and got us through the arrival formalities in just a few minutes. We didn’t have much in the way of queues on the way home. There isn’t much to do in the airport whilst you wait to board your flight though there is a basic lounge you can pay to enter where you can get a bit of peace and quiet. If you are lucky enough to be flying Business Class, BA and Virgin have their own lounges.

Prices – I would never say that Barbados is a budget destination. Prices of everything tends to be relatively high, though not extortionate. Buying our own food in the supermarket allowed us to compare prices with home and it is, on the whole, akin to doing your shopping at Marks and Spencer rather than Asda. In fact Massey’s has a tie up with Waitrose in the UK and sold quite a bit of their branded stuff. Attraction entry fees are perhaps a bit higher than you might expect and eating out is too. Car hire wasn’t particularly expensive though it pays to shop around. We used Stoutes Car Hire which was significantly cheaper than the company offered by Hammertons. Petrol was similarly priced to home and each car used about £40 worth over the course of the nine days we had them. As for the catamaran tour, we ended up paying a bit more than we had intended as the cheaper one, recommended by friends, was full by the time we’d decided who was going.

Accommodation – If you clicked on the link above you will have worked out the cost of the villa by now. Along with the villa you get access to the Sugar Hill estate’s facilities and also membership of the Fairmont Hotel club down at the beach. The aforementioned staff are included in the price though you will almost certainly want to tip them at the end of the stay. Booking through Hammertons was easy and they were a good company to deal with. There are other companies that offer villas too, it seems to be quite a normal form of accommodation on the island. Of course you don’t have to stay in a villa, there are plenty of hotels from all inclusive to basic situated mainly on the south and west coasts.

Climate – Tropical. Hot but not too hot, can be a bit rainy but when we were there we only saw a couple of showers. with temperatures hovering just above the 30C mark. Peak time is the northern hemisphere winter. Summer can be very humid and have more rainfall and whilst it has a hurricane season like the other islands, it hasn’t actually suffered a one since the 1950s. I’d say that when we went was ideal, you have the advantage of it being (relatively) inexpensive, it is largely dry and the humidity is manageable.

Mossies – Take some insect repellant. The mossies are determined little buggers. If you are lucky, like Elaine was, they may decide you are not quite tasty enough and leave you alone. If you are unlucky, like everyone else but particularly me and Caryn, your legs will quickly be bitten to high-heaven and you will be cursing the little sods for much of your holiday. A good blast of Veto Mosquito on all your exposed skin certainly helps.

Summary

Barbados delivered for us. That may have been due to our specific needs for this holiday but unlike our previous trip to the Caribbean we were quite sad to leave. You can go there purely to relax or, like us, mix relaxation with a bit of tourism and are unlikely to be disappointed. We had a fantastic ten days there and would consider it as a destination for a family meet-up again. Oh, and the next time there’s an England cricket tour of the West Indies, Kensington Oval in Bridgetown, here I come.

Footnote. Devastating news: I discovered that Barbados isn’t really in the Sunny Caribbean Sea. Typically Tropical got it wrong! The Caribbean Sea is situated to the south and west of the big arc of Caribbean Islands that stretch from Cuba to Trinidad. Barbados is an outlier, 100 miles to the east of that chain of islands and therefore completely surrounded by the Atlantic. I don’t care though. To me Barbados will always be the Sunny Caribbean Sea.

Calypso Collapso

Day One, Morning Session. It went downhill from here.

For many years the epitome of exotic holidays for a British citizen was a trip to the Caribbean. Whilst the accessibility of other far flung places has perhaps meant the Caribbean is no longer the exotic destination of choice for many lillywhite sunshine deprived Brits, it is still a popular lure for a number of reasons. Firstly, it is only an eight or nine hour flight away. Secondly, many of the islands are former British colonies and retain an air of Britishness about them. The locals are more than happy to converse with you in flawless English whilst using the local almost indecipherable creole language between themselves. Lying in the tropical zone, the area is no stranger to rain and the threat of hurricanes but most of the time it is seemingly a paradise of sun-kissed golden sandy beaches where one can escape the drudgery of real life for a couple of weeks. Of course, paradise does not appeal to everyone. I’d been to the Caribbean once before. In 2001 we spent a fortnight in St Lucia on a family holiday at an all-inclusive resort. By day three both Elaine and I were ready to come home. The resort was nice enough, the sun shone and there was a non-stop supply of food and drink but we were bored. We are not beach people. Whilst we can appreciate the scenic nature of a nice beach, the thought of spending all day lying on one did not appeal. Getting horribly sunburnt whilst constantly getting sand in all your nooks and crannies is a bit of an anathema to us so quite why we decided to go on such a holiday I’ve no idea. We stuck it out though. The kids had made some new friends which kept them occupied, we took a couple of excursions out of the resort and even tried snorkelling, which went well, and water skiing, which was a disaster. After two weeks, however, we were delighted to board the Virgin 747 for the flight home.

I like sunshine but it doesn’t like me. Apologies for the scary picture.

That one trip sealed the fact that beach holidays are not really for us. By extension, the rest of the Caribbean, which offers little but sunny beaches, would remain undiscovered. There was just one reason why I might break that self imposed tropical moratorium – cricket. With many of the islands having been part of the British Empire, cricket is a popular pastime and whilst the heyday of the 1980s may be something of a distant memory, cricket is still well loved by many. Internationally, the individual sovereign islands combine to play as the West Indies and every four years or so the England cricket team will tour there, playing a number of Test Matches, T20 games and One Day Internationals. This year the Test Matches were being held in Barbados, Antigua and St Lucia. Whilst the thought of watching five days of cricket in the Caribbean was most certainly appealing to me, it wasn’t to Elaine. In nearly 33 years of marriage, I have not managed to persuade her of the delights of spending five days watching a cricket match which might not even finish with a result. I can’t understand why not. I needed to find another travelling companion. My ex-colleagues, for whom I frequently arrange a day at the cricket in places as far flung as Manchester and Southampton made what were, quite frankly, pathetic excuses. My sister Jill is made of sterner stuff though and so it was with her I made plans. Barbados was out of the running as it overlapped with Jill’s return from six weeks with her daughter in Australia. I didn’t fancy St Lucia again so that left Antigua. A few enquires led me to Howzat Travel, a company who you might have guessed by the title specialises in tours for the travelling cricket fan. Deals were struck, monies were paid, flights were booked and factor 30 was purchased.

The 30th of January dawned with a blanket of snow covering the ground outside jill’s house in Stockport. Excellent! It will be great to get away from it to the sunshine. Or it would have been had that snow made the journey to the airport a nightmare, followed by a subsequent flight delay of four to five hours, such is the havoc just three inches of the white stuff can cause in the UK. Still, eventually Thomas Cook Airlines delivered us to VC Bird International Airport in Antigua where our pick up was waiting to whisk us off to our accommodation, the Starfish Jolly Beach Resort on the island’s west coast. The cricket commenced the following morning and I’m going to talk about that experience right now. If you have no interest in the noble game then I suggest you skip a couple of paragraphs and rejoin me when I revert to a travel blog.

We did sit in the sun for an hour or so. The result for me was that sunburn picture above.

Howzat Travel had everything arranged. A fleet of minibuses pitched up at 08:15 to ferry us to the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium. Funded by the Chinese, this stadium was built in 2006 and is, on the surface, rather impressive. Two large stands at opposite ends of the ground and the floodlights dominate the skyline for much of the east of the island. Side on to the wicket is grass terracing, one of which proved popular with the Barmy Army, England’s band of noisy supporters, though this being cricket the word ‘noisy’ is a relative term. These guys were seemingly immune to sunstroke though definitely not to sunburn. Our tickets gave us seats in the South Stand, or Andy Roberts End if you prefer it. This afforded us shade all day which suited us fine. The plastic seating would probably suffice for a T20 game; for a Test Match it proved less than bottom friendly. Many food and drink stalls were set up behind the grass banking where the pink torsos of the Barmy Army had congregated. These started emitting extremely tempting barbecue aromas as soon as the umpires had called play. 330ml cans of Heineken were the beer of choice at the equivalent of £2.50 or you could treat yourself to a rather strong rum punch for five quid. Lunch break saw us try delicious kebabs for not much money though on one day I went to a different stall, got one with rice and was right royally ripped off in the process. It’s a good idea to ask about the price first as they rarely displayed them, such a good idea in fact that I didn’t. All in all it was a fabulous place to watch a Test Match, numb bums notwithstanding. For quite a lot of extra dollars you could treat yourself to the ‘party stand’ which was opposite the side where the Barmy Army’s glowing flesh was situated. Here you could if you wanted watch the cricket in a pool whilst helping yourself to drinks and enjoying the occasional visit of Sir Viv Richards himself. There were dancing girls and possibly quite a lot of other bits and pieces too. The downside was that there was a DJ with his big sound system that blasted out music of Caribbean origin at the end of each over. This could of course be heard all over the ground but it must have been deafening close up. We didn’t indulge, though the pool might have proven more comfy than our seat. We must remember to take a cushion next time. The stadium was nowhere near full. On days one and two there was very few local supporters though more turned up on day three, a Saturday. Visiting England fans dominated. It seems the longer form of the game has limited appeal to local cricket fans.

Our usual shaded perch, complete with surprisingly strong rum punch

So what about the cricket? I’ve been putting off having to talk about it for a reason. It didn’t go well. England had been well beaten in Barbados and needed to win here to keep the series alive. The first day they struggled to a modest total thanks to some hostile West Indian bowling and bad English shot selection. Day two saw the Windies build a first innings lead. England bowled well enough but unlike their opponents, the Windies batsmen were patient and did not throw their wickets away. It was good Test cricket. Day three saw England eventually dismiss the Windies and commenced their second innings with a 119 run deficit. We could do nothing but hope for a change in fortunes. Some patient batting and perhaps a bit of luck was all that was required for England to wipe out that deficit and just maybe set the Windies a challenging total. After all, there was still two and a half days of the game left. Not a bit of it. England were rattled out for 132 in just 42 overs. Yes, the Windies bowled very well on a helpful pitch but England seemed determined to surrender their wickets as if they were in a one day international run chase. They only just avoided the indignity of an innings defeat and the Windies were set a total of just fourteen runs to claim both match and series. It took them just thirteen balls, John Campbell nonchalantly hitting Jimmy Anderson for six to end the game with more than two days to spare. This was of course a big disappointment. My first overseas Test Match had ended prematurely with my team on the end of a drubbing. It is, however, a sporting contest and experiencing defeat is all part and parcel of being a sports fan. The result aside we really enjoyed the experience and it is one we would most definitely like to repeat.

The Barmy Army have a slightly more relaxed attitude to the possibility of melanoma

The original plan was to arrive on the Wednesday, go to the cricket on Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday and, if required, Monday too. That would give us Tuesday as a lazy day before flying home on the Wednesday. However, with the cricket finishing prematurely we had three whole days to fill. This gave us a chance to try and get to know the island which is a definite plus when it comes to writing some sort of travel blog. Firstly, some background information. Antigua, along with the neighbouring island of Barbuda, is a sovereign state that gained full independence from the UK in 1982. It is part of the Commonwealth and retains the Queen as its head of state. It is a small island of 108 sq miles and is home to over 80,000 people. Most of those live in the northwest corner where the capital St John’s is situated with English Harbour in the south the only other major population centre. Formed of limestone and volcanic rock, Antigua was colonised by the British in the 1600s. The native flora made way for first tobacco, and then sugar plantations with slave labour imported from Africa brought in to work the fields. Whilst Britain abolished the slave trade in 1807, the Antiguan slaves were not emancipated until 1834 with conditions improving at a very slow pace thereafter. During the twentieth century the sugar industry declined with the last refinery closing in the early seventies. Antigua now survives largely on tourism. It claims to have 365 beaches, one for every day of the year and many of those are homes to hotels and resorts. Its British heritage mean it is popular with British holidaymakers but the USA and Canada is, perhaps, the largest market. All this information can be gleaned from Wikipedia of course but you can only get the true flavour of the place by going and having a look.

Our first impressions of Antigua came from the drive from the airport in the dark and the drive to the cricket stadium the following morning. Those impressions were not good. The roads were in a dreadful state of repair and we passed through a number of villages on the outskirts of St John’s. In these there were many homes also in a dreadful state of repair and the place was littered with abandoned cars. It all reeked of poverty to me. These impressions were wrong, however. Whilst many Antiguans do lead a modest lifestyle by western standards it seems that all the tumbledown shacks are simply abandoned when their owners die. It’s just as easy to build a new one next door. Whilst this adds nothing to the attractiveness of a settlement at least most people are living in reasonable houses. As for the cars, there appears to be an awful lot of them and the roads got very busy at times. The majority of these cars are imported second hand from Japan and can be picked up relatively cheaply. It would be better if old cars were properly scrapped rather than left to rot but at society with that level of car ownership suggests a level of affluence above what you might initially have suspected. On two of the three free days we decided to take excursions. The first was a trip on a catamaran round the island’s 54 mile circumference. This necessitated a drive into St John’s. The town is a low rise maze of busy streets and does not appear to have much going for it for the tourist other than the port. There, a cruise liner was docked, its passengers sent off on excursions to sun kissed beaches or on island tours. Others remained on board, lapping up the sun with views of the local container port. Our catamaran, motorised rather than sail propelled, departed from the adjacent dock, a handful of the passengers making the short walk from the cruise ship to join us and a couple of dozen other tourists from nearby resorts.

The good Cat Excellence on the Green Island Beach

The trip was a good one. We stopped part of the way round to visit a small island with an even smaller beach for a couple of hours. There you could go for a snorkel or just sit in the sun and take the occasional dip in the warm sea. Drinks were included, as was a reasonable lunch before we set off again to complete the circuit. The trip showed us Antigua’s coastline (obviously) and presumably all 365 beaches, though no one was counting. We sailed past Long Island, an exclusive place for the rich and wealthy as demonstrated by the fact that Oprah has a house there. You can’t get more exclusive than that apparently. On the mainland many resorts and hotels were pointed out but in between whiles there was some interesting geology to see. Most of the time though it was just nice to zip along through the water feeling the breeze in your hair or, in the case of the bald blokes on board, on your shiny napper. On the drive back to the hotel the Liverpudlian couple who had accompanied us on the drive to the port earlier were now an extremely pissed Liverpudlian couple having taken full advantage of the free booze on board. I’d have taken my hat off to them in admiration had it not been for the fact that I feared it would have been use as a vomit receptacle.

Betty’s Hope windmills, used for pressing sugar cane

Whilst that was a splendid trip it did not really give us a flavour of Antigua other than the tourist paradise bit and we kind of took that as read. Our last chance was to book a jeep tour for the following day. This we duly did and at the appointed hour our jeep, which wasn’t a jeep, turned up to whisk us and one other person around the island to see all the sights. There weren’t very many of them as it turned out, though the running commentary was quite informative. The driver/tour guide was Shelley Jay. The first place he took us was the cricket stadium which, quite frankly, we’d seen enough of but the other passenger was happy just to give it a glance and we headed down to the sparsely populated southeast corner. There we had one or two scenic stops before visiting Betty’s Hope. This was an old sugar plantation and there is very little left of it other than a couple of windmills. A building houses an informative display and that is about it but it was still worth seeing, even if there is no more sugar cane swaying in the breeze. An interesting geological feature was next on the itinerary, a natural bridge formed in the limestone rock by costal erosion. Called Devil’s Bridge for reasons of superstition, it will probably collapse soon now in the same way that the Azure Window on Gozo did shortly after my visit a few years ago. The highlight of the tour was English Harbour and Shirley Heights. The latter looks down on the former and is very scenic view. English Harbour contains Nelson’s Dockyard where colonial building still stand next to the huge floating gin palaces of the wealthy. There was a museum. We didn’t go in. A ‘genuine Caribbean’ lunch was included at a small roadside restaurant. I had curried goat as it would be rude not to when you go to the Caribbean whilst Jill had salted cod which I don’t believe went down too well. The drive back took us past Boggy Peak, recently renamed Mount Obama after a certain US president, the highest point on the island at 1,319 ft. Whilst not quite as enjoyable as the catamaran trip, the tour certainly gave us a flavour of the island and put right my negative first impressions.

Where’s English Harbour? It’s over there, mate.

Our billet for the week was the all inclusive Starfish Jolly Beach Resort. This got its name from Jolly Beach on which it is situated, a mile of golden sands where spectacular sunsets can be observed. It is a delightful setting and whilst hardly deserted, was never too busy whilst we were there. The resort is, let’s just say, a ‘value’ destination. As well as our group, two other cricket tours utilised it and it served them all well. It was also popular with Canadians and Americans escaping a harsh winter and, unusually, Italians who seemed to occupy the northern end of the resort. The buffet meals, whilst hardly haute cuisine, were fine and the one speciality restaurant we tried was very nice. This was Mexican; there was Italian and Seafood restaurants too. You can drink as many cocktails as you like, rum punch and pina colada were our favourites though they also did a mean tequila sunrise, and beer proved to be a fine cure for dehydration. There were more that enough sun loungers, though that didn’t stop people reserving theirs with towels at 6am in the morning, a big pool, a small pool and entertainment with a Caribbean theme each evening. Everyone who worked there was lovely, as indeed were all the locals we met, the bloke that sold me a rip off lunch at the cricket aside. We had paid the single supplement and were rewarded with ‘Super Saver’ rooms. This had us a little worried and our concerns were not allayed by reading reviews on Trip Advisor. We needn’t have worried. The rooms were small and rather dated – the resort was built in the late seventies and has hardly been updated since – but the bed was comfy, the shower worked and the air conditioning wasn’t needed as the temperatures were rather pleasant rather than oppressively hot. This was perhaps just as well as Jill’s unit simply circulated the ambient air whilst mine did cool it first but at the cost of a huge din. For somewhere to sleep the rooms were perfectly adequate. There will be far classier resorts on the island but for what we needed the Jolly Beach Resort suited us down to the ground.

Sunrise at the Jolly Beach. Sunbeds already reserved, though not by us.

So, Antigua? Did I like it? I wasn’t really expecting much but I was pleasantly surprised. Whilst there are many nice beaches it offers little in the way of scenery though karst and vulcanology do their best to keep it interesting. English Harbour aside, the towns and villages are not picture postcard pretty but they are living spaces rather than places to look at. You can eat well there for (usually) not much cost and enjoy plenty locally produced rum, sadly now made from imported molasses. You can watch cricket there which is of course a major plus. It is the national sport even if the locals don’t turn up for Test Matches. Its best feature has to be the friendliness of the people though. A more welcoming bunch you can’t imagine. Both Jill and I had a memorable week despite the cricket. Would I go back? Unless it was on another cricket tour, and I’d definitely do that, then I doubt it. I’m still not a beach holiday person and I think I’ve seen all the bits of Antigua that deserve to be seen that don’t involve getting sand up the crevice.

Footnote: Maybe we should have gone to St Lucia…