I don’t think so! Although every time we go somewhere new the landscape literally takes my breath away. This weekend’s adventure was a walk to Sharks Valley!
We arrived at the agreed rendezvous and were met by David Pryce (AKA ‘Bug Man’) in his land rover. He works for the St Helena National Trust and had offered to drive us ‘off road’ to a starting point lower down the valley. We all piled in and set off on a fairly scary white knuckle ride down to the start of the Mango Groves.
Setting off through the Groves was amazing and so dark. The foliage is very dense so a torch is recommended particularly for negotiating the natural streams that run through! The walk is pretty much downhill there, which of course means uphill back. Once out of the Mango Groves the walk is mainly along narrow ledges – not my favourite, but en-route we pass a spectacular waterfall and overhanging rocks and boulders.
After about an hour and a half we could see the beach and the sea.
The only way down was to scramble down a steep rock face with loose stones underfoot. I am not sure how we all made it down without injury, but we did. After a bite to eat and drink we set off back the way we had come, slipping and scrambling up to meet the path. The walk back was harder. The sun had increased in intensity and the ground underfoot was difficult to walk on. I lost my footing at one point and crashed to my knees luckily falling on the rocky path and not falling down the steep slope on the left! I wasn’t the only one. By the time we got back to the land rover, several of us were nursing cuts and bruises. Just the white knuckle ride back to the starting point remained. We arrived back safe and well, just in time to have a quick shower and head down to Donny’s Bar in Jamestown, where we had been invited to a wine tasting afternoon - what better way could there possibly be to recover from a mornings walking….
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