One of the things we were meaning to do while we were in Canada was do as the Canadians do, and take a "sun vacation" during winter. As Australians, the Caribbean sounds ridiculously opulent because only rich people go there - most people who want a beach vacation can fly to Queensland, Bali, Thailand or many other closer places. So we picked the most ridiculously opulent-sounding (to us) place we could think of to take our first Caribbean vacation - Barbados.
It's a good year to take a sun vacation - there's some sort of bizarre weather phenomenon called the Polar Vortex happening across Canada and the US meaning that this winter has been absolutely freezing - well below average temperatures. As we left home at 6am on Saturday morning at -20 in our thermals, winter boots and winter coats, crunching over 3-4cm of ice and shielding our eyes from the blowing snow that was coming down, we were very glad that we had booked the trip.
... and the final product!
Which we enjoyed in a nice glass of punch. It's ok to drink at 10:30am in the Caribbean! It was delicious :)
We thought this chandelier hanging off the giant tree was a nice touch.
It's a good year to take a sun vacation - there's some sort of bizarre weather phenomenon called the Polar Vortex happening across Canada and the US meaning that this winter has been absolutely freezing - well below average temperatures. As we left home at 6am on Saturday morning at -20 in our thermals, winter boots and winter coats, crunching over 3-4cm of ice and shielding our eyes from the blowing snow that was coming down, we were very glad that we had booked the trip.
The view from our room - we were staying on Accra Beach which is one of the main beaches on the island, and we decided to spend a bit extra for an ocean view room, which was well worth it. Every day in Barbados when we visited was 28 and sunny, with occasional cloudy periods and rain showers that turn back into brilliant sunshine 10 minutes later. A bit of a change from -20 and snowing.
We took a catamaran trip up the west coast of the island, stopping to snorkel with sea turtles and over shipwrecks.
The water was crystal clear and beautiful, and just cool enough to be nice on the hot day. Rum punch is ubiquitous in Barbados and alcohol was free on the boat - our couple of drinks paled in comparison to the British tourists on the boat with us who had 2 drinks each before we even left port and then danced drunkenly to Rihanna (one of Barbados' most famous exports) on the front of the boat all the way home.
We hired a car and drove around the island over a couple of days - it isn't very big and you could drive from one end to the other in a couple of hours. It's mostly flat with a couple of big hills in the middle.
Obligatory flag shot.
We saw this monkey running along the side of the road while we were driving.
We were staying on the sheltered west coast of the island - this is the eastern side which is open to the ocean.
You can see the difference in the water. Very few beaches here either!
An ominous-looking old lighthouse.
We followed a suggestion to check out this beach which is only accessible over these rocks - but don't worry, there's a path of concrete steps poured on them... unless the tide's coming in. Then your feet get awfully wet and you grab onto something so that you don't get washed away. Bad idea!
The next day we drove out to St Nicholas Abbey, which is an old plantation house and rum distillery in the northern part of the island.
The house itself was beautiful and nicely restored....
... and the distillery behind it was hard at work distilling rum.
The still... huge!
Rum aging in oak barrels...
Really big trees!
Sadly we only had 5 days there, and we then returned to -10 and a foot of snow on the ground. Sun vacations - a Good Idea™.
