Sunday, January 13, 2013

Journey Around St. Kitts on Land


January 8

The next morning, we work up early and picked up our rental car, dropped off the metal frame of our captain's seat at the welder, then headed out for a tour around the island. Our first stop was the Romney Manor which is one of the historic sugar plantations that has been restored and filled with beautiful gardens. This plantation also is where the famous Caribelle Batik boutique is located where they have locals displaying their technique for creating the batik designs which is a Caribbean-style fabric used to make clothing, purses, furniture covers, placemats, etc.







Our next stop was the Brimstone Hill Fort which is a huge British fort that has been preserved and turned into a National monument and park by the Queen of England. The fort was home to about 1,000 British soliders, and was almost captured by the French in a siege in the 1700s. There are several small museum exhibits within the rooms of the fort explaining the history of the monument and depicting what life was like back then. There are amazing views from the top of the fort where Statia and Saba can be seen in the distance.
















We continued our drive around the island, rounding the north shore where we stopped to look out at the ocean. It was extremely rough conditions with 10-ft waves and strong wind, so we were happy that the boat was safely docked at the marina and that we weren't in the middle of it (although we did see a couple of brave sailboats out there, much bigger than our boat!).

Next stop was the Ottley Plantation which reminded us a lot of The Golden Inn at Nevis. We walked around the gardens for a little while, then got back in the car and finished the island loop.

Later that evening, we took advantage of having the rental car and went to the Caribbean Cinema (St. Kitt's movie theater) to see The Hobbit. We were really impressed with the movie theater which was almost identical to Regal in the US, but much cheaper. One adult ticket for an evening movie cost about $3 USD. 

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