We were up early this morning, trying to beat the tropical heat on a hike this morning. We saw the sun rise as Mark drove us up to the top of the island hills on Centerline highway.
Our trip across the island was delayed with a few wildlife sightings, including a goat-jam taking up most of the road.
We noticed that the herd included plenty young kids, including these two twins that were enjoying an early morning breakfast.
These wild herds are resident groundskeepers, trimming the trees and grasses that grow prolifically in this warm and moist climate.
We're glad that they haven't munched on the bougainvillea flowers that are blooming everywhere on this island.
This morning we even found a pony wandering near the little town of Coral Bay.
We would expect to see goats, ponies, and chickens in the same picture if we were visiting a farm. But it's a little unusual to find that combination wandering through a little beach town on a little island in the middle of the Caribbean.
Our last wildlife sighting of the morning was of one of the island's wild donkeys. Their ancestors are the donkeys that once worked on the sugar plantations. Now they wander the island content to graze at will.
They wouldn't mind a treat from passing tourists, but we had nothing to share this morning.
This was Denisa's close-up view of a donkey nose in the early morning light.
After a day at the beach yesterday, today we are going on a hike. All those animal sightings were taken as we drove across the island to get to the trail head for the Rams Head hike.
We hiked beside Saltpond Bay, situated on the south side of the island. Instead of the fine sand beaches that we found on the north side of the island yesterday, this beach is covered with sizable pieces of coral.
We've seen large purple sea fans under the water while we were snorkeling. We know that this fan just washed onto the beach because it still has its purple color. It will die out of the water, and turn white like other dead corral.
Denisa left her tennis shoe in the picture just to show the size of these big pieces of coral covering the beach. We have never seen anything like this south side beach on St John!
After walking near the water on the beach, we climbed the hill onto a peninsula with views of the Caribbean Sea now far below us.
It's time for a panorama picture that shows the water on both sides of our peninsula hike. That's the Atlantic Ocean on one side, and the Caribbean Sea on the other.
Those two bodies of water meet at the tip of the peninsula we are hiking. After walking a mile, we made it to the very tip of the peninsula--the Rams Head.
Of course, Mark had to hike to the very tip where the rocks plunged down to the ocean below. What a view to the south, with the wide-open ocean as far as we could see!
If we look to the north, we can see islands and cays that buffer the winds and water. That's why the best snorkeling beaches are on the north, where they are more protected. This southern edge is like a whole different island with its wild surf beaches and desert climate.
Speaking of desert, this south side is covered with barrel cacti. Some grow a single tall knob, while this one chose to grow many knobs. We didn't expect to find so many barrel cacti on a tropical island.
We tried flying a kite at Rams Head, but it was too windy and the winds too erratic to soar successfully.
Have we mentioned how blessed we are that our son and daughter-in-law planned this trip to St. John to show their parents all these wonders? We are really enjoying wandering God's wonders with them!
The trip back to the car was mostly downhill. We decided to take the spur trail to another beach on the unprotected south side. Here the chunks of coral washing straight out of the ocean are even bigger. This is called Drunk Bay, and we are thinking that adult beverages might have something to do with the creative use of coral on this beach.
Most of the coral creations seem to have human characteristics . . .
but we especially like this large caterpillar that used round pieces of corral to inch its way up the ridge of stone on the beach.
Denisa found a heart-shaped piece of coral,
and left her abbreviated "love St. John" message on the beach--no adult beverage needed.
We found a few sea shells, but most of the south-side beaches are covered with coral. We've never seen anything like it before, so Denisa had to leave another St. John message on the picnic table before we left this side of the island.
No hike would be complete without Denisa taking pictures of the wildflowers on the trail.
We love hiking in an environment that combines desert and rain forest and gives such a rich diversity of plant life in just a one-mile walk. It's not often we see wild orchids so close to cactus!
With a 12-month growing season and plenty of rain, the plants grow like crazy on this island. It doesn't take long for them to cover abandoned vehicles.
This wild vine will drape its way over anything that stands still too long. It has a nice pink bloom to make it easier to like this invasive plant.
We stopped in for lunch at Skinny Legs Cafe in Coral Bay. Most eating establishments on this island seem to be open air, and this one had animals wandering through. It's not every day you see a sign printed on the bottom of a plate that asks customers NOT to feed the cats or chickens.
With full bellies, we stopped by the Annaberg Sugar Mill national historic site. Signs lead visitors through the ruins of the once-thriving sugar mill and the community that worked here.
The Danish owners used slave labor to grow and harvest the sugar. But a good athlete could beat the current and swim to freedom. The islands that we can see to our north are the British Virgin Islands, where owning a slave was illegal.
Have we mentioned how glad we are to share these views and this island with the beautiful young couple that made this trip possible?
We finished the day at yet another beautiful beach--Hawksnest. Even though we found some nice snorkeling to the far left side, we also found a healthy colony of sea urchins here close to our beach entry. After several painful encounters with this spiky little coral, we called it a day.
We headed back to our little town of Cruz Bay. St. John has a permanent population of around 4,000 people, and most of them live in Cruz Bay.
We stopped in for a drink on the beach,
that gave us energy to make the walk back to our villa at the top of Battery Hill. It's hard to take a picture that shows the length or steepness of an incline. Let's just say that after hiking in the Rocky Mountains all summer, the trip up Hill Street still took our breath away every evening.
We're finding lots of breath-taking things during our stay on St. John!
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