St Helena is one of three British outposts in this part of the South Atlantic, the others being Ascension Island, principally a military base, and Tristan De Cunha another volcanic outcrop on the mid-atlantic ridge.
Tuesday was spent scoping out the lay of the land and organising a tour. Internet facilities are primitive, £3.00 for 30 minutes at speeds and reliability I haven't experienced since since AOL brought dial-up internet to those who would come to think that Facebook was just, like, awesome. At £40.00 for just a SIM card, cell phone service is just ruinous. We paid under $3.00 in Namibia and that included minutes and data at pretty decent speeds.
For all that, the place had an easy going vibe. the local watering hole, Ann's cafe, was happy to run a tab for us to be settled when we got round to it. The laundry delivered to Ann's, and we could pay her when we collect it which is just as well because the laundry is in the nose bleed neighborhood, a stiff climb on a hot hot day with a load. The town is small scale. A stone built, walled, low rise coastal village built into a slender, steep sided valley. Narrow streets, some traffic, reminiscent of any similarly set rocky coastal village in Britain. The quarter mile waterfront catches the afternoon sun with a cafe at one end and small scale working wharf at the other. It is a pleasant place to dally in the shade of the trees. The wharf was busy unloading the supply ship, all supplies are brought in via South Africa and landed by lighter; very reminiscent of innumerable small coastal ports of decades ago. I believe the supply ship is one the last two Royal Mail ships left in the world.
Behind the waterfront, across a dry moat (wherein lie a pile of square rigger spars) and through the town's gated walls lies the St James town square, church, the rather bravely titled castle, prison, municipal offices, courts, shops (A Visa card? What is this Visa card of which you speak?), bank (just one and not an ATM in sight), B&B's, tourist office and a rather good museum. It is easy to imagine a series of children's adventure books set here in the vein of Swallows and Amazons.
Looming above all this stage-lit bucolic niceness are the island's stark volcanic hills that rise a few hundred feet straight up out of the Atlantic; they top out inland at around 2,800ft. The population outgrew the old town years ago and mostly live up yonder, commuting by van up the steep and very narrow switchbacks. In years past the upper neighbourhoods were reached by a funicular railway that just went straight up the mountain side. That has been replaced a staircase much loved by candidates for the Commonwealth Games, mother's who need to exhaust their rambunctious children and other restless souls. Nora and Zeke climbed it while I settled for a pot of tea at Ann's cafe set in the castle gardens.
The castle gardens, though modest, are lovely; formally laid out, filled with song birds, Hibiscus, Jacaranda and similar colourful and scented flora barely kept under control by the keeper's clippers. There were the inevitable monuments, one poignant one to one ship's men lost to pirates and at sea; not one of them over thirty, one just fifteen. A plaque commemorates Joshua Slocum's visit here in 1898. It is easy to think of the others who have walked here, Napoleon and his entourage, Edmund Halley (who's visit to observe his comet was thwarted by clouds), Charles Darwin, Dinizulu, 6,000 Boer POW's, and captain James Cook. A couple of years ago I ran across a plaque at remote cove on Vancouver island where Cook put in to replace shoddy masts installed by a British navy yard.
Thursday's tour got us up into the hills. The rocky barren coast quickly gave way to a surprising lush interior. The roads are tortuous and narrow, mostly single track. We stopped in at a craft distillery started by chap from Pembrokeshire who produces rum, gin and other spirits from local cactus. His oversized garage is stuffed with stainless steel vessels, barrels and a rather magnificent copper still. The cactus spirits, that are not tequila, pack a punch.
The obligatory stops were Napoleon's original tomb and his residence in exile. The tomb is down along a grassed road-width path and is set in a peaceful wooded dell that is immaculately kept. His hilltop residence was surprisingly modest, a dozen or so rooms, but it does contain mostly original furnishings and is packed with paintings, engravings and other memorabilia. He lived here for five years before dying in 1821 at fifty one, most likely of stomach cancer. His remains were removed to Paris in, I believe, the 1840's.
We didn't see other notable locations, but the high country interior in general is, like Reunion, eye-poppingly scenic: large fallow flax plantations on steep hillsides, the linen and cordage industry is gone; a new airport that shows signs of being a white elephant; the governor's residence, a handsome Georgian pile with sweeping views over the lawns down the long valley to the sea. Here we found a group of very large long-lived tortoises sent here in the mid 1860's at which time they were around fifty years old, and here they still live; a country church and it's extensive graveyard filled with corporals, captains and majors and their bereaved relicts; coffee is grown here and has a good reputation, though the offerings at the St Helena coffee stand on the waterfront were disappointingly insipid. We didn't find any memorable food during our stay, and the tour's lunch stop had me pining for South Africa's Wimpy burger joints. (Wimpy is a UK burger chain that, as I recall, served up the world's most indifferent protein and carbohydrate product that may, or may not, have had any connection with the butchers and baker's arts; a byword for the lowest of British culinary endeavour. Their South African namesake, while it falls short of McDonalds lofty standards, is much better.)
Today is Friday the 25th, and today we we leave on my final major leg for the islands of Fernando de Noronha, a national park off the coast of Brazil, some 1,700 n.miles over the north western horizon. I hope to find better internet, better coffee and a place to swim that isn't life threateningly cold.
Pictures? You are funny.
