21. December
Mountain Biking
With the rental car we drove South to Souffriere to keep our promise to the boys
to go mountain biking.
After a short introduction about the various trails and the handling of the
bikes we were on our own to explore the trails. They varied from easy ,
intermediate to hard, and there was also one extra hard trail, the Tinker Trail,
named after a local famous biker>
So we started biking through this wild terrain, passed some old plantation
houses from the 17th and 18th century.
The trails were all in a very lush rain forest like area and depending on the
level they were easy or steep with stones and roots. And yes, we were also
pushing the bikes uphill because it was too steep, and then we had to bike down
standing up ( sore muscles tomorrow!)
Of course we had to do Tinker Trail as well, we thought we will manage somehow
to get up there. At the beginning we were still biking until we got to a point
where we had to carry the bike a very narrow and steep trail uphill, just
holding on to a rope on one side as the other side was going down. We managed
that part but gave up at the next major hurdle and we parked the bikes along the
way continuing to hike up the rest of the mountain. But even that was a major
accomplishment because it was a tough hike over rocks and roots, there were sore
legs and lots of sweat.
But the top of the mountain rewarded us with a great view over the bay and the
Pitons, and we got to ring a big bell as a reward - we made it!
Now we just had to hike down which wasn't too much easier than up with those
tired legs, but we made it back to our bikes ( with only one fall, a few blue
marks and scratches :)
We had lots of fun, the biking was great, we have never biked in such an
environment, it was challenging. Long breaks were not possible, because the
little beasty mosquitoes were eating us alive. so we were constantly on the go.
We finished the day at Sandy Beach, resting our sore muscles and enjoyed a good
dinner at the beach bar. What a nice day!