Trip Report: Blue Mountains, Boston Bay, Kingston

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day 6: long bay (briefly), moore town/nanny falls, rock bottom wood carving (at the crafts center), winnifred beach (briefly) and dinner at woody's.

today was our big day out in porty. warren showed up 5 minutes early and we hit the road by 10am.

first stop was long bay, which i was happy to see but didn't want to spend much time at, since i was very eager to get to moore town and spend as much time at nanny falls as possible.









so, we stood for about ten minutes, looked and left.

except for the fact that it looks like the beach has shrunk a lot over the past years, long bay reminds me a lot of the east coast beaches of my childhood. i still live on the east coast, but don't bother with the beaches there anywhere as much as i did as a kid.

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at the base of moore town there was a really nice lady selling jelly coconuts (100j each- cannot beat that!) and a few men sitting on a low wall. warren asked the men what the protocol was and we learned that nanny falls is gated now and that we should first check in with the colonel to ask for the key/ask for permission to visit the falls. we told the men that i was looking to get a history lesson for my kid and the guy who took the lead on filling us in said the colonel would be happy to do that. he then pitched his guide services to the falls and quoted a pretty high fee. warren told him, "they're not tourist-tourists, they're haitian and came here to pay respect and learn our history. you can't give them a tourist price!" the fee came down to 6000j for the 3 of us, plus warren.

we stopped off at a store to get a bunch of beer and soda and wound up acquiring another guide. husband, who is good at getting to the bottom of this type of thing, asked why the first guy thought we needed two guides ("for safety," by which he meant if someone gets hurt one person could stay with us and the other could run and get someone) and if the price was gonna go up from what we agreed on ("no, same price!"). so, we were now a party of 6.

we got back in the car after the bevvy and guide stuff was sorted, and rode up to nanny's grave, which is located across the street from the moore town primary school.




i caught this little girl in mid-twirl

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here are some photos of the spot that people say nanny is really buried.

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once we peeled ti boss away from the game, it was time to head up to the falls.

let me backtrack to speak about the colonel for a moment... we really wanted to meet him, so we could pay our respects and so we could ask him to give ti boss a brief history lesson, but by the time we got up to his house he'd already left. we were told he was headed up to some land they owned, where they're setting up a new tourist stop- a parrot sanctuary and fruit orchard. sounds pretty rad to me!

so, we missed the colonel but got a key from someone else...

getting to the waterfall consisted of a 30 minute trek up a wide forest path. it was a gently uphill walk, but even so i needed to stop a few times because i have issues with shortness of breath in high altitudes (that, and i am incredibly out of shape, tbh). but i managed it! it wasn't hard, honestly.




guide #2 (i'll ask ti boss what his name was, i forget), warren, husband on the walk up



the "hard" part was an EXTREMELY steep stone staircase leading down to the falls. the railing had worn away and pvc piping had been added in parts, to form a makeshift rail. so again, this was a slightly rigorous exercise, but not that bad. i didn't take any photos because i was too busy concentrating on getting down without slipping.

once down, there was a minimal section where we had to climb over rocks and down some banks to get to the actual river area. but if i managed it, most people should be able to.





after we got down to the river, we waded a VERY short distance (a matter of feet) in waist deep water, and then we were directly facing the falls. warren, who was dressed very nicely, scrambled over rocks and thus managed to stay dry.

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