Big Dunn, Portland, Jamaica

What's the difference between riding and driving? As far as I am concerned, when you drive you rarely notice hills but when you ride the road appears to be nothing but a permanent uphill struggle. On Saturday 12th June, I was assuring someone that a ride from Agualta Vale in St. Mary to Bybrook in Portland was easy as it was relatively flat except for the hill going up to Bybrook. Well I am here to tell you that the road from Agualta Vale to Buff Bay in Portland, is full of hills, although it is part of the new northcoast highway. Problem is, when you drive, the roads are so smooth and wide you never ever notice the hills and even if you do, they never appear to be very challenging. This is a fact that I to my peril, keep ignoring as we head out to the country for our rides.

That's life anyway...full of challenges but lots of fun.

Yesterday we did have a lot of fun. We the less fit in the group, drove almost as far as Agualta Vale, while the super heroes, Alrick, Michael 1, Maurice, Barry, Howie and Damit rode from Kingston. While we passed the others on the road fairly close to Agualta Vale, Barry the racer was nowhere in sight until we got to the gas station where he was waiting patiently.

We rode out in the pouring rain and that was nice and cool, but by the time we got to Annotto Bay it was dry and the sun had started to make its presence felt. All in all it was a fairly decent ride to Buff Bay although all the once invisible hills came out of the woodwork. There we had breakfast, Charles having used his police contacts to arrange it.

What would a ride in the country be without a spectacular spill? Well we were not disappointed as a young man from the area saw us riding and jumped on his bicycle to show off. . Just by the descent beside the Buff Bay cemetery, he was in his element going down the hill without hands when suddenly I saw the spill, or as we say, "im kin puppa lick" over his handle bars and landed in the middle of the road. When I got to him and asked if he was ok he said yes but I suspect he was hurting, but pride made him jump back on the bicycle and take off. He was lucky though for not much traffic was around but a car approached just as he was retrieving his bicycle and slippers out of the middle of the road. All is well that ends well but I suspect he wont be showing off on his bicycle for a while and certainly not near the cemetary for maybe is duppy pull him off! (lol).

Although I had hiked to Bybrook twice before, I had really forgotten how long and challenging the hill was and I had to get off my bicycle twice and push up the uphill. Not unexpectedly too, I ran out of water and when I got to the district and found a shop to buy some, I immediately parked my bicycle on Barry's bicycle rack and gave up riding for the rest of the day.

It was quite a challenge to find the waterfall which was our real destination. Both Howie and I who had been there before, ended up passing it. In fact, when you leave Bybrook and head towards the Blue and Jonkro Mountain range, the next village is Berwick Spring, but it is now inaccessible to cars as like so many areas in the range, the roads suffer from frequent breakaways. I was driving and passed our waterfall and actually reached the breakaway before reaslising we were lost. Anyway Maurice ( Jamaica's greatest guitarist since Ernie Ranglin!)was riding and heard the water gushing out of the hills and found it. We had to cross over the Mabess river to get to the area where there are three sections where the cool water from the Blue Mountains gush over humongous rocks and cascade into nice swimming holes below. Two of the swimming areas are so deep that they appear from the surface to be bottomless like Blue Hole which is also in Portland.

Maurice did not disappoint as he performed the spectacular feat of falling from pool number two over some serious rocks straight down to pool number one. Luckily he did not hurt himself too badly.

Then we headed to another waterfall that some local young men had shown Charles and Micheal Chuck. This fall is part of the Spanish River and is close to a district called Chepstowe which the local people call Stowe and the lovely area we went to is called Big Dunn. Lower down the river there is another nice swimming area called Little Dunn and we were told the property belongs to the Marley estate.

We had to walk quite a distance to get to the falls but it was a resonably easy walk and the path is strewn with apples which are really going to waste down there while we have to pay and arm and a leg for such fuits in Kingston. No wonder people say if you live in Portland you can't starve, for it is really a lush, beautiful and fruitful parish which remains our own relatively undiscovered Garden of Eden.

On a sad note, Winston Chin You, one of our members who always came along on the rides as a support driver, died on Monday 7th June. Walk good Chin You.

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