ships in Saint Kitts
We hadn’t made any pre-cruise plans for the Saint Kitts port stop on our Caribbean cruise on the Enchanted Princess. One of the couples we had dinner with said their daughter and son-in-law lived on a sailboat and would be anchored off of Saint Kitts at the time our ship arrived. We initially thought they had offered to take us all out on their sailboat, but after we all said we would go it turned out to be a land tour. They had arranged for an island tour which took the two of them as well as all 8 of our dinner group. Though this tour was pre-arranged, it was likely much the same as the last-minute tours offered at the port other than having the option of stopping in additional places if there was anywhere someone wanted to go. The price had been booked by the van and divided among 10 people it came out to $35 per person. Plus I think everyone added a tip at the end.
botanical garden flower
All throughout the drive the driver kept up a running commentary about all of the places we passed by and the names of the towns we passed through. A lot of the towns were quite small and ran into one another so that if you weren’t a local you would just think they were all part of the same city. It seemed like every time we went up or down a little hill it was a different town even though we hadn’t gone very far and there wasn’t any empty space between the houses lining the road. No entering different town signs either.
St Georges Anglican Church (internet photo)
There are a lot of old stone churches around the island. The driver pointed them out as we drove past, but did not stop for us to take photos at any of them. He also pointed out other places of interest like all the different hotels and some businesses as well as landmarks, almond and other types of trees, and when to look for spectacular views on the way up a narrow winding roadway up a hill, but we didn’t stop for photos of any of them either. After the tour was over everyone wished someone had requested a stop for at least one of the churches, or that the driver would have just stopped at some of those places rather than just mentioning them as we passed by.
view in Saint Kitts
Roads in Saint Kitts are very narrow. It felt like there was just barely room for two vehicles to pass by one another in most places, though there were some curves on some of the hills where signs said to honk so that if anyone was coming the other way they would know someone else was coming and not both try to go around that curve at the same time. In many of the little towns people just park in the driving lane and then all the traffic has to go into the other lane to pass around it so if anyone is coming from the other way they have to stop and wait. There weren’t any sidewalks so people just walked in the street.
ruins at Old Road Rum distillery
There were also a bunch of people riding bikes – mostly tourists from the German ship docked next to ours which had a row of bikes next to it when we walked by. Large groups of them got in the way of our van more than once. We did not see any kids playing in the road, but the driver said that they do, and the cars have to wait to go by until the kids finish whatever they are doing and get out of the way. They were probably all in school during our tour. The guide said school is required there for all children. They wear uniforms to school, a different color for each one of the island’s many schools.
ruins of the sugar mill at Wingfield estate
We passed by a veterinary college that had quite a lot of donkeys in fields next to the road. We also saw some horses, cows, and goats. There were probably other animals around somewhere because the driver said that the school had some of all the different types of animals that people on the island have. The island has a lot of monkeys running around, but they aren’t native. Their ancestors came as pets for the French people who lived there when France controlled parts of the island. Another non-native species is mongoose who were brought to the island to control its native snakes. There are no longer any snakes on the island. Now the mongooses are a problem eating people’s chickens.
Old Road Rum distillery
Remains of old sugar mills protrude from the landscape in numerous places. In the time of slavery there were sugar plantations on St Kitts, but they are just ruins now. There is still some sugarcane grown on a few islands in the Caribbean, but only a fraction of what once was grown there so sugar mills in most places are just ruins.
ruins and bridge to trail at Old Road Rum
The first stop on our tour was by request of one of the other passengers at Old Road Rum, a functional distillery since 1681. Of course the equipment used now is far more modern than what was used back then. Tourists can see ruins of some of the old stuff, which is mostly brickwork in towers and holes in the ground. Mainly ruins of a sugar mill built in 1655. Sugarcane and rum go together since rum is made from sugarcane. Rum tasting is available there, for a fee. It’s the oldest surviving rum distillery in the Caribbean.
old tree
Next we went to a botanical garden, which is part of the usual tour. Some people went up in the van to the front entrance from the road. The rest of us walked up a trail from the distillery. On the way we saw some monkeys in a tree.
sign by the tree
The garden had an ancient tree and even more ancient ferns among the plants and flowers there. The tree is a Saman tree over 400 years old.
botanical garden at Romney Manor
The estate also had some ruins of old brick structures. The gift shop had all Batik items made right there at Caribelle Batik at Romney Manor. The garden is recent, taking the place of sugarcane when St Kitts quite producing it in the 2000’s. In 1834 Lord Romeny freed his slaves. This was the first estate in Saint Kitts to do so, and at that time it was against what British Parliament wanted.
Batik at Romney Manor
All of that, the rum place, garden, and batik are on the Wingfield Estate, which was a sugar plantation. The tour guide did not tell us there is also a zipline called Sky Safari somewhere on that estate, though that may require booking in advance. It also cost significantly more per person than we each paid for the island tour.
entrance to Brimstone Hill Fort
Next we stopped at Brimstone Hill Fortress National Park. This old fort sprawls over many acres. After years of abandonment parts of it were restored, though some of it is still in ruins. It was originally designed by British military engineers, built and maintained by slaves. It’s a UNESCO World Heritage site. St. Kitts was the first Caribbean island colonized by Europeans.
cannon at the fort
Brimstone Hill was first used for military purposes in 1690 when the British started building the fort and installed a cannon on the hill to drive out the French. The fort was completed with intermittent construction over the next century and used by the British until 1853. The site was abandoned and left to go into ruins until restoration began as a historical site in 1965.
view from the fort
The British military of the time wore uniforms designed for England’s much colder climate which caused some soldiers to die of heat stroke.
courtyard at the fort
Arriving at the fort requires a hairy drive up a steep hill on a very narrow winding road which passes through several even narrower stone gates. It takes some driving skills to negotiate these gates, which sometimes are located at nearly hairpin turns.
view of the fort from the parking area
The road ends in a large flat expanse of grass where people park. At that level there’s a small refreshment stand, a visitor center and a gift shop near where our van and everyone else already there parked. A short walk from there leads to some stone ruins also at the same elevation. The tour starts with a short movie about the history of the fort in the visitor’s center, which like every tourist attraction everywhere exits through the gift shop.
stairway to the fort
From there to see anything else other than the one set of ruins, it’s a steep walk either up or down. The main fort is up at the top so we went up. There’s a lot of old stonework and a lot of cannons at the fort. It also has some nice views of the sea. Most of the fort is open areas surrounded in stone walls, but there were some inside places. The largest inside place we went into had tiny bathrooms which were free to use, but looked like it had been quite some time since their last cleaning. At least they were actual flush toilets and not the nearby narrow sloping trench that looked as if it may have been the lavatory of its day.
Caribbean and Atlantic
Our last stop on the island tour was at a viewpoint where you could see the Atlantic Ocean on one side of the island and the Caribbean Sea on the other. The narrow strip of land in between had a very brown looking salt pond. There were a lot of tour busses and vans at that stop, and several little booths selling cold drinks, snack chips, and souvenirs.
tour busses at the viewpoint
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