The island of Rihanna’s houses

Our driver and guide, Tiny

Anything can happen if you go into it with a positive mental attitude. We trotted off to the restaurant. We were not crammed in at dinner last night and to be fair, our meal was actually OK. We were served in a leisurely fashion and everything was relaxed. We raised a glass to dad whose anniversary it was yesterday and reflected on the couple of months we’d lived with him before the cancer’s grip finally got the better of him. We’ve mentioned him a lot on this trip simply because he would have been so interested in the workings of things, the mechanisms of things and also the cultures and environments we’ve been to. If we think of him and talk about him, he lives on…in our minds at least. Simple.

Today has been a triple-aspect trip. An Abbey, a railway and rum. We are in the Caribbean, let’s face it and the latter is utterly compulsory. 

The lovely view from our balcony

Last night I had mused to Nick that it might be nice to have room service tonight with a glass of something lovely, overlooking Barbados and watch the ship sail away to our next destination. St Lucia. Great idea Gabs. However, Barbados port has about as much charism and charm as Felixstowe. Sadly it doesn’t have the quaint attraction of Aruba. OK, restaurant it will be then.

Supplies quickly began to arrive - note the amount of beer

On arrival into Barbados, it was a beautiful, clear, sunny day with not a hit of protection from any clouds. Sun protection at the ready. We headed off in good time onto the port shuttle, through the terminal and then onto our tour bus. Our guide and driver for the day was Richard, AKA Tiny. This was one of those incongruous names, as he was a BIG chap. We headed off to the northeast of the island. 

Rihanna's childhood home

The Bajans are proud of their people and within 5 minutes of our tour, we were being shown the house Rihanna grew up in. This was where she spent the first 17 years of her life before she found the colossal fame she has now. 

Rihanna's apartment block

Then, what seemed like only 5 minutes later, we were being shown Rihanna’s home now. A US$12.5 million apartment at number 1 Sandy Lane. The difference wasn’t lost on those taking part in the tour. Interestingly, we found out later that 1 Sandy Lane is designed by the same architect who owns St Nicholas Abbey, Larry Warren, which we were to visit later in the morning. The beach outside the apartment block is public, so yes, we mere peasants could rub shoulders with the rich and famous, if that’s your drop.

Today’s island is roughly 20 miles long by 15 miles wide. At its highest point, Mount Hillaby, it is 1116 feet above sea level. Population-wise, you’re looking at around 282,000 inhabitants on the island. Throughout our drive, we were treated to glimpses of beautiful, clear, unspoilt beaches. It is very lush and tropical with a lot of palm trees. The island is made up of coral and limestone rock. The local houses are clapper board, single-storey, small chalets barely bigger than a Wendy house. There were also a number of council houses, which looked nothing like ours and were very colourful, but in brick and concrete, rather than the local wooden clapper board variety. There were a number of starter homes priced at US$50,000. The green monkey, which we saw, runs wild throughout the island. Tiny explained that he was constantly sounding his horn as a means of greeting and it’s not used in aggression. He seemed to know everyone on the island. We drove past the St James area, which was very swanky. Tiny explained that in 2021 they had an exceptional year of natural disasters. They had a storm which gave 14,000 lightning strikes in 24 hours. A neighbouring volcano erupted causing massive ash clouds on Barbados and then they had hurricane Elsa. Oh, and of course, on the sidelines, they were dealing with COVID-19 along with the rest of the world. The island has a pleasant climate ranging from 36 degrees at its hottest down to 21 degrees. 

Tiny talked, and of course drove, non-stop for an hour - please note that some facts may have been lost in translation here - and then we were at the St Nicholas railway. There was a cafe at the railway and as we had 15 minutes to spare for a comfort break, I suggested to Nick we put that time to good use and get some coffees. It was our first experience of the hugely inflated prices that Barbados charges. $10 for 2 Americanos. Nothing fancy here. A fairly weak black coffee. And then we were informed we couldn’t drink on the train. Thankfully, they were more than happy to wait for us to finish our coffees before setting off. I sure wasn’t going to waste a drop of my coffee. Mediocre or not!

Winston, the St Nicholas Abbey locomotive

Looking into the cab

On the caboose for the journey back

The smell of the steam train was of a bygone age. The occasional toot of the whistle really did bring back a Colonial era. We chugged through 400 acres of land at the St Nicholas Abbey estate. 

Up the gradient

It was explained that back in the day when the train couldn’t cope with the gradient of the hill, the 3rd class passengers would get out of the train and push. To help the train go that bit faster, the 2nd class passengers would get out of the train and simply encourage the 3rd class passengers with their pushing. Meanwhile, the 1st class passengers complained about the slow speed and were given rum punch to placate their moans. When the train got back on the level, the 1st class passengers then showed their gratitude to the 3rd class passengers and it was rum punches all-round.  

Rounding the bend

“I think I can, I think I can” is the sound the train makes as it goes up the hill. Funnily enough, when we heard the train in the distance, this is exactly the sound it made. After a lovely journey up to Cherry Tree Hill station, we then came back standing on the back plate of the train.

The St Nicholas Abbey estate

It was then on to the St Nicholas Abbey great house. Built in 1658, it is one of only three remaining Jacobean buildings in the western hemisphere. Here, we learnt about Colonel Benjamin Berringer who built the house and plantation, but didn’t live there for very long due to being poisoned by his wife and her lover, his business partner. The St Nicholas Abbey rum distillery is called Annabelle. It is one of four major distilleries in Barbados. Their rum is initially made at 92%. It is then diluted to 60% and then cut further to make an acceptable 40% liquor.

Sadly, we couldn’t go upstairs in the Abbey as it’s not been restored sufficiently to cope with the volume of tourists who visit the Abbey. Also, we learnt that although it is called an Abbey, it’s actually a house. 

St Nicholas Abbey Rum

They produce a variety of rums starting at your average white rum, to a single blend rum aged in US oak barrels. The darker the rum, the smoother it becomes. They weren’t that keen on parting with their rum for free and we were given one tiny taster of a 5-year-old rum.

Morgan Lewis Windmill

Then it was down to Morgan Lewis Windmill, the biggest and only fully functional sugar windmill in the Caribbean, now owned by The Barbados National Trust. Barbados isn’t particularly hilly, but at one point our bus was really struggling and I thought I don’t know about pushing the train uphill, we might be pushing the bus up the hill!

Eventually, it was back to Bridgetown port. Tiny talked non-stop all the way to the Abbey and all the way back. An hour’s trip either way. Tooting all the way to folks he knew. My observation was that Bridgetown wasn’t hugely attractive and being a Sunday, was largely shut. As we didn’t want to get back on the ship, we found a cafe next to the port where we were right royally ripped off for the second time in one day. 

The first rum punch - but not the last!

We ordered a couple of rum punches and a couple of veggie burgers. What arrived was something called Beyond Meat. It looked like pulled pork. It smelled like meat and tasted like meat. I couldn’t eat it, even when the waiter assured me it was veggie. So give them their due, they gave me some veggie samosas instead. These were washed down beautifully by a rum punch or two.

We asked if we could join some ladies at their table as they had an umbrella and at this point, we really were experiencing Barbados’s tropical sunshine. They were lovely and before we knew it we were chatting away. One of the lady’s sons lives in Bournemouth, and she lives in Lightwater. So we chatted about our time in Frimley, Bournemouth and Poole. Sadly they were replaced by a couple where the bloke was an absolute cruise bore. Wow, time to make a sharp exit. Back to base for a sober-up with a coffee and a Do Not Disturb notice on the door whilst we had a snooze.