On the "road"

We decided to leave Castara for the night and visit Charlotteville, on the very northern tip of Tobago, and Speyside. Looking at the map, this seems to be a short enough escapade - but the drive from Castara to Charlotteville is a good 1,5 hours, and another 20 minutes to Speyside.

Hence "road". It is really a beautiful drive through thick rain forest, but really curvy, steep and narrow and certainly not for the faint-hearted. Even the biggest rollercoaster fans might find a pukebag handy. And here are a couple of other examples of the reason for the slow drive: Finally, we reached Charlotteville:

We headed to Pirates Bay, renowned for snorkling. It was supposed to be an 800 m walk from the village centre. Honesly, I think it was probably 400 metres up, and 400 metres down again. The idea of bringing the baby stroller loaded with snorkling gear etc on the walk wasn't the best idea we had. Here is a view of the beach from the top;

We were so exhausted arriving at the beach that we all jumped into the water - even the little one this time (as you can see she almost floates by herself with all that baby fat :)) And we discovered that we brought fins - but no masks for snorkling...

Walking back to the village was not something we looked forward to, but E climbed the trillion stairs herself, very impressive, and was this proud afterwards:

The rest of the day we chilled at our very cute hotel, located just on the beach. It was a beautiful setting even though you occasionaly woke up in the middle of the night actually thinking the waves vere in your bedroom.

The next day we made a stop in Speyside, and went on a glass bottom boat trip around Goat Island, to see some corals and fish. Because of the kids we wanted to make a short trip - max 45 minutes. The captain agreed - especially for us. We were just about to board the boat when he said "just two minutes" and left. He came back approx 20 minutes later with 8 more passengers.

Returning home we managed to end up in Roxborough (do check the map above...) There are literally just two roads up there and we laughed so hard when we discovered that we managed to pick the wrong one and ended up on the other side of the island. Well, we got to see the Forest Reserve as well as a bonus.