Mud & Slopes

On my final full day in Montserrat, I decided to take on something which I always wanted but never got the chance to - tackling the tallest peak in the Centre Hills, Katy Hill. According to the Montserrat Tourist Board website, they mention that "you will definitely need a guide" and "hikers should be prepared for a very strenuous experience, as well as mud and moisture in the Katy Hill cloud forest". As such, I managed to cajole Paddy to take Gerren and myself up the Katy Hill North trail, which is the most direct way up and down the summit.

Little did I know that I was to end up embarking on the steepest hiking trail I've ever done. Hiking seemed like an inappropriate term in this case - towards the end of the trail, we were scrambling up 60-degree angle slopes and traversing 2-foot wide ridges with 80-degree drops on both sides. It was certainly not for the faint of heart - indeed, I'm surprised that over all these years no one (that I know of, at least) has fallen off! The trail was extremely steep and uneven throughout, and coming down was more of exercise of sliding down on your bum and hoping that the wet, slippery mud doesn't send you flying off the side of the hill.

Nonetheless it was rewarding work, despite only being able to catch glimpses of the stunning scenery through gaps in canopy, and with no distinct summit marker it was a little hard not to put off the "oh, so this is it?" feeling. Should you ever visit Montserrat and decide to embark on this trail, be prepared!

Making our way back down the muddy trail.

Taking a scenery break.

View of the north end of Montserrat from the slopes of Katy Hill.

With Montserrat being such a hilly island, hiking certainly is a great way to tour the island and soak in the views from the numerous vantage points scattered about. Indeed, Monty has more cliffs than beaches, giving it its imposing character when seen from air.

Ash & Pyroclastics

Yesterday I decided that my free time (so far) would be best spent driving around the island and orientating myself to the island. Montserrat itself isn't big; at 10 miles long and 6.8 miles wide, and more than half of it in the exclusion zone, it is significantly smaller than Singapore. However, it is extremely hilly - most of the populated areas are not along the coast, as there seems to be much less accessible shoreline that I first expected. Therefore a journey from Olveston (where I am, the southern part of the habitable area) to Brades (the de facto capital up north) takes at least twenty minutes.

With it being a tropical island with very little seasonal temperature variation, it is very much like being back in Singapore, except with the climate generally being a couple deg C lower and certainly less humidity levels. A lot of Montserrat does resemble Singapore sixty years ago - very rustic, rural and colonial in some ways.

One of the stops I made during my little island road trip was Jack Boy Hill, a secluded lookout spot in the northeast where I had a partial but picturesque view of the exclusion zone as well as the former airport which was abandoned during the last major eruption. It was quite surreal to see vast portions of land completely covered with hardened pyroclastic flow, rendering the entire landscape a dull grey - very much like a modern-day Pompeii.

A house completely destroyed by pyroclastic flow.

Coastline of the exclusion zone.

I also visited some of the (undestroyed) beaches along the west coast, with a popular one being Little Bay. This area is being redeveloped as the new capital town, with it being one of the more popular areas on weekends where bars and nightclubs open for business. The island's diving shops and facilities are also located here, so I hope to be spending some time there in the future when I decide to take up diving again!

Other practical considerations which I managed to suss out were the exact locations of the only two petrol stations on the island (they must be making a fortune!) as well as where some of the island's schools are located. At present I'm staying very near the only secondary school on the island, where I will be mostly based at. It seems I'll be starting work on Monday - can't wait. There are only so many free afternoons where I can sit on my porch all afternoon drinking beer and enjoying the sun.

View of the beach from Little Bay

You can tell from just exploring the island that Montserrat has come a long way since more than half the population were made refugees from volcanic activity in 1995. Everyone here seems to share a spirit of solidarity, spurred further on by a thoroughly friendly and amicable attitude. When I got out of my car at the supermarket and locked it, a local came up to me and said, "This is Montserrat, no need to lock your car!" Okay, maybe that will take some time getting used to.