George and I just finished a lovely lunch of lambi (conch) fritters and salad at Paradise Beach Club and are hanging out here for the balance of the day. George is reading and working on reconciling our credit card bills, Duhkxy is harassing crabs, and I am attempting to write this post.

Once Duhkxy hits a beach, he is digging up and chasing ghost crabs. They are nearly invisible on the sand if they remain still. After unearthing them, he LOVES to chase them and he will bark and prance around them if they don’t run.

In the absence of Hashes on Carriacou, we decided to make it a tradition to take a mid-morning hike each Sunday. We start out and end at Paradise Beach Club in time for a delicious late brunch.

We were recently introduced to an app (wikiloc, for wiki location) that allows you to input routes you take and to insert photos taken along the way. Your route is then visible on the app for anyone else using it and you have access to any others that have been put in the app.

The trail shown above is the one we created in wikiloc from our first Sunday hike. We actually started and ended at the red point with a black square (we forgot to activate the app until we reached the green triangle point). Starting at the Red Point (Paradise Beach Club) we turned left on the road to Hillsboro. This road is fairly busy and certainly not a highlight of this loop trail. It is almost flat and passes quickly. At the blue dot, we turned on to a quiet road for a short distance until we reached the intersection, Six Roads. From Six Roads the trail becomes a dirt road where we encountered roaming goats, new vegetation, trees with giant oval calabash-like fruit a very large immature soursop orchard, a hillside covered in Caribbean pumpkin patch, a beautiful bird we had not seen before, and the shell of a large turtle. We often observe new wildlife on our walks and do our best to identify them when back on the boat.

These large oval or round “fruits” grow from the trunks or larger stems of Calabash trees. When they dry, they are brown and hollow and often used to make pretty bowls.

This massive Soursop orchard is young and not yet producing many fruits. Soursop is a heavenly tasting fruit that lives up to its description of having combined flavors of banana, apple, and pineapple. It makes a wonderful juice, jam, and smoothy (personal experience)

Pumpkins (or very large squashes) are a staple in the Caribbean diet. There are many varieties. Patches are often, like this one, rambling vines on a hillside requiring little maintainance. They are delicious!!

The Red-Footed tortoise is indigenous to South America and was introduced (or re-introduced?) to Grenada and a couple of nearby islands after hurricane Ivan.

After a short gentle climb an overlook facing north provides a Glimpse of Hillsboro with Union Island (St. Vincent and the Grenadines) in the background. Travel restrictions due to Covid 19 have thwarted our plans to travel there. We plan to head there soon after we return next year.

As we continued the ridge there are views of the southern waters of Carriacou.

The hike continues west along the backside of the hill, views of the southern side of Carriacou Island overlooking Tyrell Bay emerge.

Continuing and descending northern views are of L’Esterre Bay (including the Marine Preserve and Sandy Island).

The loop ends at Paradise Beach Club, where we began.