ON THE SLOPES OF THE NEVIS VOLCANO ........

Rented a car to drive around the island of NEVIS, to drop off a load of laundry and to pick up another 10 gallons of diesel in jerry-cans ........... But it was the drive to see the former sugar estates on the slopes of the NEVIS volcano, that took our breath away ............ But instead of only ruins we found incredible gardens that surround the former sugar boiling houses, which have been converted to cottages ............. And from every door, and through every window you see flowers of every tropical type ............. We can only share a little of what we saw ........... Truly spellbinding ............



Take this beautiful finger-nail plant as an example of the bromiliad family ......



You should double-click on each of these photos just to see the incredible beauty ....... I mean, you would swear that this is where candy corn comes from ...... We had lunch at the 'Golden Rock Inn' (a former sugar cane mill) as did this caterpiller .........



Surrounded by magnificent palms, lillies, orchids and bromiliads of every description ....... and in colors too pristine to pass up ............ Just look at the perfection of that ginger plant with a flowering sculpture ......... Almost like pearls in a forest ..........



Even the "Queen Of Florida" blends in beautifully with this stand of "LIPSTICK or WAX SEAL" palms whose original home was Thailand ............ And surely there is nothing as perfect as that golden water-lilly, or that pink frangipani (plumeria) ............



We went to the MONTPELIER PLANTATION where again the remains of the mill house and its adjoining buildings have become a restaurant ....... And nearby is a spectacular botanical garden surrounding the house in which Horatio Nelson was married ......... Then the plot thickens ............ For it seemed he married Fanny Nesbit who was the 'house manager' of the Estate, in a ceremony under the silky cottonwood tree back in 1787 ......... Now below is what a 'Silky Cottonwood' tree looks like .............Full of incredibly sharp thorns ...... And right next to it is a 'Petticoat Palm' tree .......... 'It had to be a thorny road from the spiky silk tree to the petticoat' for an Admiral of the Sea, if you follow my drift .....



Now ALEXANDER HAMILTON, a true Nevisian, born on the foreshore in NEVIS whose portrait now hangs in HAMILTON HOUSE on Low Street in CHARLESTOWN and whose face appears on every US ten-dollar bill, not only became the Secretay for the US Treasury, but initiated the founding of the US Coast Guard and numerous other founding acts, including the signing of the original US constitution .......



Now that may all be very sweet ........ But the bottom line was SUGAR, SUGAR and more SUGAR ............ Milled by crushing the sugar cane stalks between giant metal rollers, in the photo above driven by a steam engine through a series of reduction gears ..........And in the photo alongside, by a windmill built on a stone tower ........ The sticky-sweet syrup would flow into these cauldrons which continued to boil to drive off the water until the brown sugar crystallised while the dried-out stalks fed the fires and the chimney drew the smoke up and out ............... It all sounds sweet and romantic but it was sheer hard labor for thousands held in bondage .......




Driving on the left-hand side should be easy for an Aussie ........ But the road is narrow and the corners are many, and anyway ............... The road sign is probably true .......... Oh, and did we mention that they are making beautiful electricity at a rate of 2.2 Megawatts as long as the wind blows, with these incredible windmill towers............. The same strong wind that has kept us here for another day to discover the secrets of the slopes of NEVIS .....







So the windmills that once made sweet sugar now make the sweetest juice to light the World .............