On Tuesday, June and Eglon picked us up from the guesthouse at 9am. They had a whole itinerary in mind, and so we set off on a guided tour that would end up seeing us travel counterclockwise around the entire country over the course of the day!
First they drove us through St Lawrence Gap, which is the centre of the island's nightlife: lots of restaurants, clubs, hotels and - at night - people. We didn't end up going there at night anytime, but at least we got to see it during the day. Didn't take any photos though!
Next we stopped in at the HQ of the Barbados Horticultural Society, of which June is a member. She was excited because they had just won a gold medal at the Chelsea Flower Show!
The large yard at the Horticultural Society contained an old "mill wall" (i.e. a sugar mill with only the walls remaining). Due to the island's history of sugar cane production, there are many of these around. They are heritage listed, so if there's one on your property, you can't do anything with it. It's a pretty nice garden ornament though!
From there we headed to a large hangar beside the airport: the retirement home of G-BOAE ("Alpha Echo"), the Concorde aircraft that used to regularly fly the London-Barbados route. The
Concorde Experience is one of Barbados's prime tourist attractions, and was worth the $20 USD admission fee! June and Eglon had been there lots before, so they waited in the lobby while we did the hour-long tour.
We had an extremely knowledgeable tour guide whose enthusiasm for the Concorde was very evident. After she told us all about the Concorde era, we watched an audiovisual presentation that was projected onto the side of the aircraft (and included the "boom" noise made when it exceeded the speed of sound), and then had a tour inside the jet. I didn't know anything about the Concorde before this, but it was really interesting. Here are some pics from the tour...
A little further east, we stopped for a quick look at Crane Beach. The east coast of Barbados is not good for swimming due to really strong undertows, but it sure is picturesque! I read in a guidebook that The Crane - the hotel in the first photo below - has turned itself into a bit of a tourist attraction due to it's amazing location... apparently they charge $5 for a tour of the grounds!
Next we had lunch at a Chefette...
And then they showed us the convention grounds!
Our next stop was the East Point Lighthouse. It's located at Ragged Point, the easternmost part of Barbados. It was a very windy spot - there's nothing between there and Africa! The lighthouse was built with coral stone in 1875. Apparently there were 22 wrecks on the reef it overlooks in the 50 years before the lighthouse was built.
Looking up at it, the clouds scooting across the sky behind the lighthouse gave the impression that it was slowly falling over - thankfully
away from us though! Old lighthouses are awesome - they make me think of Famous Five books. I think this is the first one I've ever seen in person!
Continuing along the maze-like roads of the Barbadian countryside (thankfully Eglon and June mostly knew where they were going!), we came to Codrington College. We didn't get out of the car but just drove in along the palm-lined driveway to see the stately old college, built in 1743. I read on its website that's it's the oldest Anglican theological college in the western hemisphere.
And that's it for part 1 of 3 of our island tour. Part 2 of 3 is going to be solely dedicated to our next destination, the Andromeda Botanical Gardens, to cater to the keen gardeners among our readership. :)
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