Visit 2006/7 - December 27
This afternoon is time for the inevitable walk to the dew pond at the top of Green mountain.
So it is a drive up the mountain, climbing the first 2,000 feet up the ramps as far as the Red Lion, built by the Royal Marine farm workers in 1863, and to think they would have had to man handle all the building ... it took us long enough sitting comfortably in the Land Rover. From the Red Lion it is all on foot from there on for the last 800 or so feet to the summit.
Climbing up from the Red Lion and looking to the left the middle of the WideAwake runway is clearly visible in the top left of the picture, whilst the concrete rain catchment areas the Marines created on the lower parts of Green mountain can be seen just to the right of centre.
A bit further on, and the end of the runway is now visible just right of centre, with the very end obscured by Mountain Red, although these days the adjective Red is a bit of a misnomer as it is gradually being covered by green vegetation.
Then we are into the bamboo on the path to the top. The picture does not do the slope justice as the rope hand rail on the left is essential for some parts of the path. Staggering to think that all the bamboo derived from a few plants brought out from Kew by the marines.
A bit further on, and on previous visits this was heavy cloying mud, but now there is a wooden walkway, one of the almost inevitable trade-offs between the economic benefits that extra visitors to the island versus the ecological impact that the extra visitors entail.
Then before we know it, the path opens out to the Dew Pond at the top, and the boys (I.e. Paddy and Finn) are straight in the water.
So is Lynda discussing with Collin the best place to stand to avoid getting wet and muddy when the boys come out and start shaking themselves ?
If so , then she got it a bit wrong as Finn makes a bee line for her ! Still a bit of mud splashing is infinitely preferable to our last visit when Finn knocked Lynda over resulting in a broken wrist for her.
Strange to think that these lush water lily plants are just a relatively short distance away from the barren landscape that makes up most of Ascension Island.
The letter box at the Dew Pond. One almost feels this this would be more suited to somewhere in the home counties outside London rather that at an altitude of 2,900 feet in one of the most remote bits of the South Atlantic
Everybody departs and the Dew Pond is suddenly quiet again.
As we walk back Sisters Peak comes in sight with Travellers Hill and Two boats village in front of it.
In the distance on the left the BBC World Service transmitter is clearly visible
The size of the bizzy-lizzies and other cultivated flowers at the Garden Cottage make the ones in our gardens back home seem like midgets, and not only that, but the ones here flower all year round.
But then the tall palm trees remind one that we are only a little bit south of the equator.
A very wet Paddy, looks rather sad.
On the way back the sun and shadow on Broken tooth and Hollow tooth make it obvious why they were given their names.
