Ascension Island 5

Pictures uploaded September 24th but blog posted October 3rd.

By the time we had climbed back up from Spire Beach the sun was shining again.

This photo was taken from near where we had parked and looking down into Cricket Valley, an old volcanic crater. On the skyline you can see the NASA station, which was operational from 1966 until the early 1990s. The building is now used for scout camps.

Looking the other way we had a good view of White Horse mountain which we climbed this year.
As we really are gluttons for punishment we decided to try one more walk before the day was done so headed on up Weatherpost which was quite a scramble. Our main problem was finding the letterbox when we got up to the plateau as the instructions were rather vague and there were a lot of trees. As the clouds descended again and dusk was approaching I was inclined to give up but then we found it. It felt quite an achievement having come about 2,000 feet almost straight up from Spire Beach.

However I realised that our achievement paled into insignificance when I thought about these land crabs. These large crabs live in burrows on the mountains, even as high as the top of Green Mountain, and range in colour from yellow and orange to reddish purple. When the female lays her eggs she carries them as a spongy mass under her abdomen all the way down to the sea to release the larvae into sea water.

On both our visits to Ascension Island we were very puzzled by these small piles of tiny white (but occasionally coloured) papery things, looking almost like soft sea urchin spines, which we found in lots of the places we visited. The mystery was eventually solved when we questioned a lady at the museum. They are small shreds of paper put out by the local Hash to mark their trails!

This must be one of the world's more unusual golf courses. The One Boat golf club.

This plant is Euphorbia origanoides. It is unique to Ascension Island and an endangered species. We only saw it in one location. There are also several endemic ferns which grow on Green Mountain.