Hilly but beautiful St Lucia!
We stayed in the North at Gros Islet which was a great location, around 1 hour 45 minutes transfer from the airport. Sandals Grande St Lucian is a three minute walk from Pigeon Island so we took advantage of this on one of the rainier mornings! It is US$10 per person to get into the National Park and has a large garden area, old buildings and two peaks, one of which has Fort Rodney on. The first part of the walk up to Fort Rodney doesn’t take too long and although up a slope is sheltered by trees and not too steep and you are rewarded with a viewing platform, even at this level the views are pretty amazing. It gets a little bit more fun from here when the path gets a little steeper and at the top you have to climb a steep wooden ladder with narrow rungs! You can sit on the wall of the Fort here and admire the view whilst recovering from the journey up, a few people who arrived before us had bought picnics and were enjoying those! We then ventured down to the viewing area again and had a look towards the second higher peak (the lookout). It wasn’t clear what was there but we thought we should go and have a look! After another fairly gentle slope the terrain changes and you find yourself climbing, walking amongst rocks and some parts are quite steep! We kept going and some areas looked closed off but decided to carry on as once you’d got past those areas the track was back in place again! The last ‘climb’ was quite steep and over rocks but on making it to the top we were quite pleased we’d made the effort! The views of the Caribbean Sea and Atlantic Ocean on the other side were pretty awesome and we got a great view of our hotel too! We’d taken our umbrellas so when the showers came we were able to take cover under those and the trees before carrying on again once it cleared which thankfully never took very long!
We’d already booked a hike of the Gros Piton for the next day and little did I realise that the Pigeon Island walk was extremely tame compared to the Gros Piton hike! Gros Piton is one of the two famous Pitons you see in all the pictures of St Lucia, they are in the south of the island so it meant an early start (6.30am pick up) so we could do the almost three hour journey to make the start point. The Piton is 2619ft and the starting point for the hike is 600ft. I still didn’t realise quite what I was letting myself in for at this point, I just knew it would take us around 2 hours up and 2 hours down. They break it down into four half hour sections with a rest between each and it was when they said we will see how you feel at the second stop before we decide whether to carry on and that we also needed at least two litres of water per person, that I started to think this wasn’t going to be the leisurely walk in the park that I’d had in mind!
So we set off and thankfully it’s pretty much all under the cover of trees and the ‘track’ is around the edge of the Piton and the first section is manageable with some rock climbing. The second section is also manageable and definitely wasn’t the full half an hour with our group. For the first two sections you go around the Piton but sections three and four are more straight up so we knew we had the hardest part to come and we were all a little tired already and getting through our water! The third section was the hardest I found, it was definitely longer than half an hour and the first time we’d done almost all climbing and it was a little wetter up there so we were starting to get muddy too! This was when some of the group (of 12) started to struggle! We managed to keep going and had a longer break at the third stop! I think once we’d got that far we knew we’d make the top and after more climbing and scrambling (you have to use your hands and the well placed rails!!) we made it to the top! The view was pretty spectacular (although you can’t see Petit Piton from the top due to the trees) but it was not what I was expecting at all! I expected a cleared area with picnic benches, that’s normal, right?! But no, the top is a few, uneven rocks so if you want to sit down you have to find a relatively flat one to perch on the edge of!! It was totally worth it and because we’d lost a few of the group we got to enjoy our achievement and the view for a good half an hour or so. A while later though, the rest of the group made it and we were our full group again!
So, at the top we’d done the hard bit....or so I thought! But actually coming down is almost as hard, although it isn’t physically as exhausting, it’s steep and was slippery in places so you really had to control every step so as not to slide down the edge of a cliff! My legs were tired by then so I was also struggling with jelly legs! It took us just as long to get down as it did to get up. With four guides for our group, they said it was rare for a group of that size to all make it up and down and with no injuries too so we were proud of ourselves with that achievement!! We were all pretty tired and I’m not sure what the mini bus must have smelled like after our long journey home but we had such a brilliant adventure! If you can manage the physical side of this it is well worth a try and I’d definitely do it again if we ever return to St Lucia!
We were only in St Lucia for 6 nights but managed to see a bit of the island and I loved what I saw and it definitely reminded me of why I love the Caribbean so much!