Barbados holiday, Post 8: Island tour (part 3 of 3)

After we left the Andromeda Gardens, we saw the Soup Bowl at Bathsheba and stopped in at Barclays Beach...









Saw this interesting rock formation beside the road...



And drove up to the Morgan Lewis Mill for a quick look. It's one of only two intact and restored sugar mills in the Caribbean.





Next we visited Farley Hill, where there are some awesome ruins of an old mansion that was destroyed by fire in the 60s.







We walked to the top of the hill and were greeted with an amazing view and a strong breeze that made me feel cool for the first time that day (well, apart from when we were driving around in June and Eglon's air-conditioned car!).







I can't remember the name of the next stop. The reason I know all the others is that, at the end of the day, June helped me jot down a list of where we'd been (about 20 places!)... but we forgot to include this lovely spot! While we were watching the waves roll in, we saw two big turtles come up for air a few times.













Our next stop was North Point, the northernmost tip of Barbados. This is where the tourist attraction Animal Flower Cave is - the "animal flowers" being sea anemones. June had told us it isn't as interesting as it sounds, though, so instead we stood on the cliffs and watched the waves crash in. Magnificent!









We had a laugh when we realised that the "Australia" sign in the photo below was pointing north... yes, from the Caribbean. Pretty sure the map wasn't consulted in the placing of the other signs either!



In the late afternoon, we visited June and Eglon's friend Richard in the west coast town of Mullins. On the way, we'd picked up some bakery goodies, so we had a delicious afternoon tea. Then we changed into our togs, and the five of us walked to Mullins Beach. It's one of the most popular beaches in Barbados, but late enough in the day that most of the tourists and beach chairs were gone.

Then we consumed a bag full of mangoes (from Richard's tree, I think) while standing up to our necks in the sea! Apparently eating mangoes in the ocean is a fairly frequent activity for Richard, June and Eglon... and we can see why. A delicious saltiness added to the taste, facilities for chin-washing were instantly available, and we could drop the skins and seeds straight into the sea. This may be the Best Idea Ever!!!

Here's a picture of Richard at his house after the swim, as we set off back to June and Eglon's...



And this is dinner on June and Eglon's front verandah. We had fried tuna, done in the same type of batter as the fried flying fish at Oistins... and this is the only tuna I have ever eaten and LIKED!



And that was our tour of Barbados. By the time they took us home late that night, we had spent another 13 hours together. Thanks June and Eglon for a fantastic day!!

Easter in Portland

For the Easter long weekend, we headed to Portland, Oregon, on an "Aussie road trip" with Davina and Mel. We had a blast letting all our pent-up Australian-ness pour out, and saying all the things we can't say around Canadians...

We spent most of Friday driving to Portland. It's a 5 hour drive south of where we live, but being Easter weekend we had the longest border wait we have yet seen - 3 hours. Then we spontaneously stopped in Bellevue (near Seattle) for lunch at Red Robin with Ben's cousin Connie and a workmate of hers. These factors turned our 5 hour road trip into an 11 hour one (in pouring rain a lot of the way), but since we were enjoying ourselves we didn't mind too much!

The long road trip also gave all members of our party sufficient time to learn what day we were returning to Canada. (Two out of the four needed to sheepishly call their employer on Friday and request Monday off. Apparently Monday is only a public holiday in BC for government employees like me... and my emails containing the "leaving on Friday, staying three nights" information hadn't quite spelt things out enough... :P)

Once we arrived in Portland, we found the holiday rental house I had booked using Home Away. It was a lovely 3 bedroom house in an area about a 5 minute drive south of downtown Portland. We were very happy with the house AND the price!



Then, we did a bit more driving around, got some groceries, and had dinner at a random Irish establishment...





The next day was our main day of sightseeing. First we checked out the Portland Saturday Market. It started raining, but it was a great market with lots of cute stalls...

One of the things Portland is notable for is its variety of awesome bridges. One actually has two layers of traffic going across it - that bridge is visible in one of the Pearl District photos below. And here's the view of another of Portland's bridges, as seen from the Saturday Market...

After the market, we headed to the biggest new and used bookstore in the world: Powell's City of Books. Fantastic!!! It's a whole city block and three storeys high. The outside is pretty unassuming, but inside it has 9 large rooms, each named after a colour and together containing over a million books. The new and used books are shelved side by side. We spent a happy couple of hours browsing, and could easily have spent the whole day there!











After buying less books than we would have if it weren't for the dilemma of getting them home, we had a "dress up Anna" session at a thrift store across from Powell's, and then headed to the Pearl District - a rejuvenated former light industrial area. We ate lunch at Hotlips Pizza, which was recommended to us by Kelly and Janae. It was yummy - and had a very cute little delivery car parked outside!











Then we wandered around the Pearl District for a while...

























That night, we had dinner at a restaurant where we were entertained by a local band singing covers of old songs with varying degrees of listenability. We had driven back and forth a bit before deciding on this restaurant, and when we turned the GPS on and drove home, we were amused to discover we had been eating just around the corner from our rental house!





After the meeting on Sunday, we were invited to lunch by a young couple, Derra and Bryan, who have a cute little boy, Soren. Lunch was at Bryan's parents' home, and when we got there we discovered that the whole family was in attendance, three generations of them - there were 14 of us altogether! We were thrilled to be a part of it, and had a wonderful time getting to know them and answering lots of questions about how we all ended up in Canada!



L-R: Bruce, Margie, Rhonda (holding Trek), Andrew, Derra (holding Soren), Bryan, Audrin and David...



Adorable Trek!...



We stayed visiting with them until it was time for the gospel meeting. After that, we were invited for burgers at the home of a few of the local blokes! There turned out to be quite a crowd there too - in addition to three workers, quite a lot of guys (and one girl) trickled in throughout the evening! The burgers were great and there was a lot of fun and hilarity going on. From our "studies", we can definitely conclude that Portland has nice people!!!

Here are some of them...







And our hosts, Phil and Mike (uncle and nephew)...



It was a great - and very sociable - Sunday!

On Monday morning, we wandered around the outside of Pittock Mansion...





And then strolled (with our umbrellas - did I mention it rained pretty much all weekend?) along 23rd Avenue (recommended by Connie), where all the shops are in old houses. It was a really cute street - better than the Pearl District we thought!

After a well-received lunch at a crepe restaurant, it was time for the drive home. Thankfully it didn't take 11 hours!



And that was Portland - one of our favourite US cities to date! Hopefully we'll return for another attack on that bookstore before we leave this continent...