Island Gully Falls

Well it will certainly go down as one of the most interesting marriage rituals I have ever seen. For while we Island Gully Falls on Sunday 28th June 2015, a groom fully decked out in his wedding suit and led by a most competent guide, walked slowly

were at

down the falls  then jumped into the deep, beautiful blue 

pool below. 

Next came his new bride,  also fully  decked out in her lovely white lace wedding dress and she jumped in after him.  The maid of honour and best man then followed in single file. Someone laughingly commented that it was clear that if you couldn't swim, you could not be a part of that bridal party!

The ritual was intriguing and certainly got our attention. The couple were east Indians who live in Virginia, USA and had traveled down to Jamaica for the important event which the bride laughingly told me was her best wedding yet.

The tour guides there are superb swimmers and divers

We had been  at the falls as our riding group had decided to spend the day there. Three courageous riders, Johann, Omar and a new lady named Ann  rode all the way from Kingston, a distance of some 58 miles I hear. Most others rode from Agualta Vale and a few others mounted at Port Maria.

I decided to hike on this trip for when I went to scout out the property with Chuck, Simpson and Ayatollah, I had seen far too many hills to ride over.

We started walking from Prospect in St. Mary and as usual, we initally walked in the wrong direction for about a mile before a local man we met disabused us, so we had to trek back.

It was in Prospect though that I  met the only nice policeman that I can recall ever meeting in my life. His name was Sergeant Hanna and he was in charge of the Prospect Police station. Three of us wanted to use the bathroom facilities and from we walked into the station we were met by his most welcoming  and accommodating smile.

 And would you believe the bathroom had a fresh smell and was spotless too. Really a great experience for me in at a police station!

One of the "Blue Holes" below the Island gully Falls

When we left the police station, we started walking in the wrong direction and only realised this when we met a young man walking in the opposite direction  and prevailed on him to confirm our path. This added an extra mile to our trek which Chuck said was a distance of 6 kms, turned out to be 6 miles  instead. I was disgusted to see that the residents in  the area were using the entire stretch along the river bank as their dumping ground for all the garbage in the area. It is really disgraceful and the St. Mary parish council needs to become more environmentally proactive.

We stopped at Wata World which was not yet open but the very pleasant man in charge of security, cheerfully allowed us to enter and use the bathroom facilities and buy some water. This is a new attraction on the White River where they have water slides etc and the entrance free is Ja$1200. Wata World is on St. Mary side of the river but once you take the bridge going west, you arrive in St. Ann and it is that parish that Island Gully Falls is in as the White River separates both parishes.

To find the falls, after leaving the JPS hydroelectric plant, you pass the two beautiful blue holes and head to Breadfruit Walk. It is wonderful to see how enterprising young people have now discovered this beautiful area and are now renting river shoes and life jackets as well as selling souvenirs, snacks and even "angel" muffins (made from ,ganja)

As my motto is "never pass up an AC vehicle when the sun gets hot,"  when Gail drove up in Simpson's car as I was getting really hot and tired, I jumped in, much to chagrin of my fellow hikers.

We had just barely arrived before Kim came barreling in closely followed by Howie and Bernadette. They had been among the group which  started riding in Agualta Vale.

Once we arrived, it was immediately into
the fabulously, clear, cool water in a pool below.

 That attraction which was developed by a wife and husband team named Hines, is really fabulous and in my book much better than Dunns River Falls.

The entrance fee is $500 but as we had a large group we got it for $250. And they prepared the most delicious breakfast for us and plenty to boot, as ace organiser Ayatollah was loudly inviting everyone to have seconds.

There was a sad aspect to this outing though as it is the last one for one of our dearest riders Pat,  as she is migrating to Sweden next month. I will certainly miss her as she is one of the most pleasant and cheerful persons I have ever met.

Apart from that it was a great day which went off without a hitch as we have now become accustomed to expect from our miserable but competent organiser extraordinaire Ayatollah aka. Charles Williams.

Photos compliments of Bernadette Frankson.

An historic ride

I think Fun and thrills riders created history on Sunday August 31st by being the last riding group to take on the new south to North highway which reports state have been killing automobiles because of the steepness of the incline. Last, as the very next day is when the toll kicks in and cyclists will definitely not be allowed, they say.                                                                                                            It was  however the closure of the Mount Rosser route on the 31st August 2014 that caused some 30 of our courageous cyclists to take that route for they had been severely warned that cyclists would not be allowed on it.

Moneague  Lake

While I have no way of knowing who actually did it all as I, being o little courage said from day one that I would not be riding over Mount Rosser on that trek to Blue hole in Moneague which was organised by our efficient sheriff Nicole. 

Instead I choose to hike from Faiths Pen with 9 other persons. We therefore drove on the new highway which took us through brand new, absolutely beautiful and lush country.

We had planned to take the exit to Faith's Pen so we could hike to Moneague, but that exit was closed so we had to go to the end of the highway, drive to Faiths Pen then hike back to Moneague then east to Blue Hole.

Shortly after passing Moneague lake and
Watsonville, up drove Charles Simpson declaring that he could ride no more and had jumped into his vehicle. Gail who had been driving the supporting vehicle took  then took the opportunity to stretch her legs and joined us hikers.

The destination, Blue Hole is quite an attractive park in the making. The owner, Mr. Carter, told me it had been bush land but he has a dream to eventually make it into a full entertainment centre with movie theatre and all.

 Incidentally, he told me the name of the river there was Blue Hole but I prefer to believe the map which identifies it as River Hole!

As we had driven  most of the way, we were there some time before the riders started filing in . First came was barber Dean who arrived at least half hour before the 2 second place person .

 Barber Dean hasreally blossomed  by leaps and bounds for now he  hardly bothers to ride with us little leaguers and in fact won the Kingston to Negril semi professional race this year.

  Omar too has  become a top rider with out group.

Third came Bernadette, the first woman rider ( I am sure!) to conquer the new highway although she says she stopped three time.

 Blue hole was a lot of fun although on the first touch, the water is quite cold. However once you become acclimatised it was absolutely wonderful and some local kids had great fun showing off to us how they jumped from the ledge up above and even out of a mango tree, into the bottomless blue hole beneath. They must have been shocked however as Kelly one of our hikers, not to be outdone, alsomade the leap!

Local kids also jumped off the ledge in to the deep blue hole beneath.

We all had a wonderful time lounging around, kissing the tree that is supposed to cure all ailments, eating a nice Jamaican breakfast  (though small;!) while different persons related their experiences riding up those unforgiving hills on the new highway while Howie's granddaughter Ria enjoyed herself in the river and on the swing.  

An Omar Downie photo

It was then too that I  heard how Gibby too had made history by falling twice on the new highway and he has the scars on his elbows and knees to prove it too!

When you see Maurice did not make any move to ride back, you get to realise how challenging the ride to the destination must have been and we really missed Barry who is ill in hospital, as we know he always enjoys a new challenge. 

Anyway, regardless of the difficulties some people had completing the journey, everyone had a wonderful day as we always do, especially when  we "discover" somewhere new.

JOAN WILLIAMS, moderator of  JOAN WILLIAMS ON LINE broadcast on POWER 106, describes herself as an unapologetic addict to the Jamaican outdoors. A foundation member of FUN AND THRILLS ADVENTURE CLUB, she explores the island at any given opportunity cycling, hiking or swimming with that group, family, Jah 3 and anyone else who will have her. In 1995, she published the popular TOUR JAMAICA and the 4^th edition is now an ebook available at;

http://www.amazon.com/Tour-Jamaica-Joan-Williams-ebook/dp/B00EJWCSHS/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1389464644&sr=8-1&keywords=tour+jamaica+by+joan+williams

Contact; gratestj@gmail.com

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.

FOR MORE PHOTOGRAPHS SEE: http:www.facebook.com/?ref=home#!/album.php?aid=220566&id=763366822