Having done the gentle walk to the dew pond on Green Mountain we decided to try one of the more challenging letterbox walks to Spire Beach. I did wonder what I was letting myself in for when I read this warning sign at the beginning of the descent!
Wev had driven out to the eastern end of the island past the old NASA station and along a track before starting walking. You start at about 1,500 feet above sea level and descend down a rocky gulley.
I must have managed to get ahead of Simon to take this photo.
There were lots of wild guavas growing in this gulley which provided some welcome refreshments.About half way down to the coast this gulley dropped off in a precipice and we had to cross over into another gulley which was a bit precarious but there are a couple of chains attached to the rocks to give you something to hold onto.
From here it was much more barren, with hardly any vegetation, and some interesting volcanic rock formations.
As we descended so did the clouds and by the time we reached the beach it had started to rain but it didn't last too long.
This letterbox wasn't hard to find in a pile of stones in the middle of the beach and people had assembled an odd collection of flotsam and jetsam around it. It is always interesting to read the visitors books. I think it was about a month since the previous visitors to us had been there so if you had an accident you couldn't count on someone coming along very soon!
The rain cleared while we ate our picnic lunch and watched the many sea birds flying around us and around Boatswain Bird Island just off the coast. This small island is the nesting site for thousands of birds including tropicbirds, frigatebirds, boobies and noddies.
There were also some on the cliffs above us. Having enjoyed the rest we then had to climb back up the way we had come down!
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