Antigua Directions Read online

  The track climbs briefly between Cherry Hill and Sugar Loaf Hill, allowing great views back over Falmouth Harbour, then drops down through the scrubby bush, with sea grape and acacia trees on either side. After 25 to 40 minutes you'll reach a rocky bay strewn with conch shells; a further 10- to 15-minute wander along the beach brings you to Rendezvous Bay.

  * * *

  Great Fort George

  High above Falmouth, and offering terrific panoramic views over the harbour and surrounding countryside, are the ruins of one of Antigua's oldest defences, Great Fort George (also known as Monk's Hill). The fort was constructed during the late seventeenth century, when England was at war with France. After the French navy captured the nearby island of St Kitts in 1686, the English decided to build Great Fort George on the hills behind the island's main town, together with housing and water cisterns to provide a secure retreat for Antigua's tiny population.

  Though the French never in fact invaded, the fort was eventually completed in 1705, with dozens of cannons pointing in all directions; barracks and gunpowder stores were added during the following century. By the mid-1800s, when any threat of invasion had receded, the fort was employed as a signal station, using flags to report on the movement of ships in and around Falmouth Harbour. Today, though much of the fort is in a very ruinous state, it's still well worth the effort to get to for the fabulous views and – as there's rarely anyone here – a quiet but evocative sense of the island's past. Upon arrival, you'll notice that much of the enormous stone perimeter wall remains intact. Meanwhile, inside the main gate and to the right, the west gunpowder magazine (built in 1731) has been well restored. It's fun to wander around the rest of the extensive scrub-covered ruins and see if you can identify which part was living quarters and which part military establishment.

  To reach the fort, you'll either need to be driving a 4WD vehicle or take a thirty-minute hike: a precipitous but passable track leads up from the village of Cobbs Cross, east of Falmouth. Alternatively, from Liberta (north of Falmouth), take the inland road to Table Hill Gordon, from where another track winds up to the fort.

  English Harbour

  The road east from Falmouth leads to the tiny village of Cobbs Cross, where a right turn takes you down to the small village of English Harbour, which today consists of little more than a handful of homes, shops and restaurants. Nelson's Dockyard is the real attraction here.

  Nelson's Dockyard

  Daily 8am–6pm. US$5 or EC$13. Entry fee also covers Shirley Heights.

  Adjacent to a fine natural harbour, one of Antigua's definite highlights is the eighteenth-century Nelson's Dockyard, the only surviving Georgian dockyard in the world. Though construction began in 1743, most of the present buildings date from between 1785 and 1792. Many of these buildings – such as the atmospheric Admiral's Inn hotel – were built from the ballast of bricks and stones brought to the island by British trading ships, who sailed "empty" from home en route to loading up with sugar and rum.

  The place developed primarily as a careening station, where British ships were brought to have the barnacles scraped from their bottoms and generally be put back into shape. The dockyard provided a crucial function for the military, providing them with a local base to repair, water and supply the navy that patrolled the West Indies and protected Britain's prized colonies against enemy incursion. However, during the nineteenth century, the advent of steam-powered ships, which needed less attention, coincided with a decline in British interest in the region, and the dockyard fell into disuse, finally closing in 1889.

  Over the next sixty years the various dockyard buildings took a battering from hurricanes and earthquakes, until the 1950s saw a major restoration project; in 1961 the dockyard was officially reopened as both a working harbour and a tourist attraction. It was only then that the area got the name "Nelson's Dockyard" – apparently, the Antigua tourist board decided that a famous title was needed to market the place, and so they named it after the heralded British admiral, who as a young man was posted here for three years. Ironically enough, Nelson didn't like the island at all: he referred to Antigua in his correspondence as "a vile spot" and "this infernal hole".

  Nevertheless, today the dockyard is a delightful place to wander around. To get here, follow the main road south from English Harbour, which ends at a parking area. From there, the entrance to the dockyard takes you past the local post office, a bank and a small covered market, where vendors compete languidly for custom on their T-shirts and other local souvenirs.

  The Admiral's Inn

  Nelson's Dockyard.

  Beyond the dockyard's mini-commercial zone, the first building on your left is The Admiral's Inn, built in 1788 and originally used as a store for pitch, lead and turpentine, with offices for the dockyard's engineers upstairs. Today the place operates as a hotel and restaurant, yet the conversion has taken care to retain the original feel of the place, leaving an appealing atmosphere redolent of the dockyard's long history. Adjoining the hotel, a dozen thick, capped stone pillars – looking like the relics of an ancient Greek temple – are all that remain of a large boathouse, where ships used to be pulled in along a narrow channel to have their sails repaired in the sail-loft on the upper floor.

  The dockyard museum

  Nelson's Dockyard. Daily 8am–6pm. Free.

  Down a lane from The Admiral's Inn, just beyond various restored colonial buildings and a 200-year-old sandbox tree, you'll come to the Admiral's House, a local residence (never actually used by an admiral) which was built in 1855 and today serves as the dockyard's museum.

  The museum is worth a quick tour for its small but diverse collection that focuses on the dockyard's history and on Antigua's shipping tradition, with models and photographs of old schooners and battleships. Also look out for the cups and records celebrating the various races held during the annual Sailing Week, when English Harbour almost disappears under a tide of visiting yachts, their owners and crews. Finally, right across the street from the museum is Terrence Sprague's Heavenly Hill Art Gallery, a great place to see colorful local artwork.

  Officers' quarters at Nelson's Dockyard

  Just beyond the bougainvillea-festooned Copper and Lumber Store, which now serves as an elegant hotel and restaurant, are the officers' quarters – one of the most striking buildings in the dockyard, with a graceful double staircase sweeping up to a long, arcaded verandah. Ships' officers lived here during the hurricane season, when most of the fleet put into English Harbour for protection. The building sits on a huge water cistern of twelve separate tanks, with a capacity for 240,000 gallons of water, and today provides space for an art gallery, boutique, bar and other stores. The downstairs offices house the immigration and customs authorities.

  Fort Berkeley

  The narrow path that leads from behind the Copper and Lumber Store to Fort Berkeley is easily overlooked, but a stroll around these dramatic military ruins should be an integral part of your visit to the area. Built onto a narrow spit of land that commands the entrance to English Harbour, the fort was the harbour's earliest defensive point and retains essentially the same shape today that it had in 1745.

  The path leads down to the water's edge; go around the jetty and some steps take you up to a trail leading to the fort, ten minutes' walk away out onto the headland. On your right as you approach, above the craggy wave-swept rocks, cannons once lined most of the wall facing out to sea, with the main body of the fort at the far end of the walkway comprising sentry boxes, a recently restored guardhouse and a gunpowder magazine or store. A handful of early nineteenth-century Scottish cannons are still dotted around the ruined fort, and the place offers spectacular views out to sea and back across the sand-fringed harbour.

  * * *

  Sailing Week

  Begun in 1967 with a tiny fleet of wooden fishing boats, and now regularly graced by over 200 quality yachts, the English Harbour Race is the centrepiece of Antigua's Sailing Week, a festival of racing and partying that transforms the ar
ea around Nelson's Dockyard into a colourful, crowded carnival village and the harbour into a parking area for every type of sailing boat. Don't expect to find a lot of Antiguans present – it's predominantly a party for the American and European sailing contingent – but if you're on the island in late April/early May it's a good place to see some superb sailing action and squeeze in a heavy night of bar-hopping.

  * * *

  The Middle Ground

  For some rather more strenuous hiking, a right turn just before you reach Fort Berkeley leads up a poorly defined track to the peninsula known as the Middle Ground, where more military ruins dot the landscape. It's a stiff clamber to the top of the hill, where a circular base is all that remains of the one-gun Keane battery that stood here until the early nineteenth century. Still, standing up here you'll get a clear picture of the strategic importance of the Middle Ground for defending both Falmouth Harbour to the west and English Harbour to the east.

  Fort Cuyler

  From the Middle Ground hill, a track leads down and then up to the remains of Fort Cuyler, where more gun emplacements and crumbling barracks walls stand as further testament to the military domination of the area. You'll need all your tracking skills to keep to the paths around here – goats and the occasional goatherd are the only users of the old soldiers' tracks these days, and there is a fair amount of prickly cactus and thorn bush to contend with – but the hike offers spectacular views over the harbours, the ocean and the desert-like landscape of the Middle Ground.

  Pigeon Beach

  Though there's not much in the way of beach around Nelson's Dockyard, a good place to head for some sand after sightseeing is Pigeon Beach, five minutes' drive or twenty minutes' walk west of the dockyard. As you head out, turn left just before the harbour and follow the road past a series of restaurants and the Antigua yacht club. Keep going past the Falmouth Harbour Beach Apartments, take the uphill track that goes sharply left and follow the road down to the right, where you'll find a wide expanse of white sand. When the harbour is full of boats – for example, during Sailing Week or the Classic Yacht Regatta – the beach can get a little crowded, but generally it's a lovely, secluded spot. At time of writing, the excellent local beach shack, Bumpkins, was closed due to a fire, though plans are afoot to reopen soon.

  Shirley Heights

  Daily 9am–5pm. US$5 or EC$13. Entry fee also covers Nelson's Dockyard.

  Spread over an extensive area of the hills to the east of English Harbour, numerous ruined military buildings offer further evidence of the strategic importance of this part of southern Antigua. Collectively known as Shirley Heights (although technically this is only the name for the area around Fort Shirley), it's an interesting area to explore, with a couple of hiking opportunities for the adventurous who want to escape the crowds completely.

  The area is named after General Sir Thomas Shirley, who, as governor of the Leeward Islands, was based in Antigua from 1781 to 1791. At a time when British Caribbean possessions were fast falling to the French – Dominica in 1778, St Vincent and Grenada in 1779 – and with British forces in America surrendering in 1781, Shirley insisted on massive fortification of Antigua to protect the naval dockyard. Building continued steadily for the next decade and, although the threat diminished after the French were finally defeated in 1815, the military complex was manned until 1854. Since then, it has been steadily eroded by a succession of hurricanes and earthquakes.

  Clarence House

  Shirley Heights.

  Following the road uphill from English Harbour, you'll pass the late eighteenth-century Clarence House, an attractive Georgian house built in 1787 for Prince William, Duke of Clarence (later King William IV), who was then serving in the Royal Navy. At the time of writing, the place is under renovation, and cannot be visited. However, upon completion, it will house a museum of the lives of people who have stayed here, including the duke, various governors-general of Antigua and the Leeward Islands, and the late Princess Margaret and the Earl of Snowdon, who spent their honeymoon here in 1960.

  Galleon Beach

  Shirley Heights.

  Past Clarence House, a right-hand turn-off leads down to The Inn at English Harbour, as well as the attractive crescent of Galleon Beach, where numerous yachts are normally moored at anchor just offshore. With a huge, old anchor dragged up on shore, this is one of the best beaches on this part of the island; the calm, shallow waters are great for swimming (though not so suited for watersports).

  Dow's Hill

  Shirley Heights.

  If you ignore the turn-offs down to Galleon Beach and carry straight on you'll soon see the Dow's Hill Interpretation Centre, which, frankly, has virtually nothing to do with the history of the area and is pretty missable. Nevertheless, outside the centre you'll find the scant remains of the Dow's Hill Fort, while indoors there's a collection of local shells and a fifteen-minute "multimedia" exhibition, with an adult voice answering a child's questions about the country's history from the Stone Age to the present. Thrilling stuff, to be sure.

  Cape Shirley and the Blockhouse

  Shirley Heights.

  Beyond the Interpretation Centre, the road runs along the top of a ridge before dividing where a large cannon has been upended in the centre of the road. Fork left for the cliff called Cape Shirley, where you'll find a collection of ruined stone buildings – including barracks, officers' quarters and an arms storeroom – known collectively as the Blockhouse. On the eastern side a wide gun platform looks downhill to Indian Creek and beyond, to Standfast Point peninsula and Eric Clapton's enormous house, as well as out over the vast sweep of Willoughby Bay. Every year, stories leak out that Clapton and friends such as Elton John and Keith Richards have turned up to jam at one of the island's nightclubs – but don't count on seeing them.

  Officers' quarters at Fort Shirley

  Shirley Heights.

  If you take the right-hand fork at the half-buried cannon, the road will lead you up to the further ruins of Fort Shirley. On the right as you approach are the still grandly arcaded (though now roofless) officers' quarters, overgrown with grass and grazed by the ubiquitous goats.

  The military cemetery

  Shirley Heights.

  Opposite from the officers' quarters, across a bare patch of ground, are the ruins of the military hospital and, in a small valley just below the surgeon's quarters, the military cemetery. Here you'll find barely legible tombstones, dating mostly from the 1850s; disease – particularly yellow fever – was prevalent at that time. There's also an obelisk commemorating the men of the Dorset regiment, English soldiers who died while serving in the West Indies during the 1840s.

  The Lookout

  Shirley Heights.

  The road from English Harbour ends at Fort Shirley itself, where a restored guardhouse now serves as an excellent little bar and restaurant. Beyond the guardhouse, the courtyard of the Lookout – where once a battery of cannons pointed out across the sea – now sees a battery of cameras snapping up the fabulous views over English Harbour, particularly on Sundays when the tourists descend in droves for the reggae and steel bands.

  Indian Creek

  From the Blockhouse it's a short but steep downhill hike to the bluff that overlooks Indian Creek, where, scattered along the shoreline, some of the island's most important Amerindian finds have been made. The hike passes down through scrubby grassland tended by goats and strewn with cacti, including the rather phallic red and green Turk's head cacti. At the bottom of the hill there's a small, sheltered but rocky beach, not great for swimming. The path continues up through a wood of cracked acacia trees and onto the deserted bluff, which offers grand views over the creek and, further east, to Mamora and Willoughby bays.

  Mamora and Willoughby bays

  From Cobbs Cross, avoiding the right turn to English Harbour, the road runs east towards a couple of quiet bays, namely tiny Mamora and the huge curve of Willoughby. It's an attractive drive, though there is little specific to see; Mamora Bay is n
ow dominated by the exclusive St James Club, while the road past Willoughby Bay winds up through pineapple fields towards the old Betty's Hope sugar plantation and the island's east coast. Unless you're staying at St James, Mamora Bay is pretty difficult to visit. Easier to reach is Willoughby Bay, though it's utterly deserted, with no hotels or beach bars, and exposed to the Atlantic; even on a calm day, the ocean is quite rough around here.

  Liberta

  Liberta was one of the first "free villages" established for emancipated slaves after Britain abolished slavery in 1807 and subsequently passed the Act of Emancipation in 1834. Today, even though Liberta is one of the largest settlements on the island, you'll find little reason to stop off and explore. On the main road through town, though, take note of two very striking churches: one of these, the pretty, pink church of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, is just by the turn-off to Fig Tree Drive, while the other is a little further south, an unusual-looking affair in local green limestone and red brick, with a red corrugated-iron roof and lovely stained-glass windows.

  Swetes

  Northwest of Liberta, Swetes is best known as the birthplace of cricketer Curtly Ambrose, the West Indies' leading fast bowler during the 1990s, and of present-day local cricketing hero Ridley Jacobs. There's not much in the way of sightseeing here, apart from a surprisingly well-preserved sugar mill and a curious house built in the shape of a boat.

  Accommodation

  The Admiral's Inn

  Nelson's Dockyard; tel 460 1027, fax 460 1153, www.admiralsantigua.com.

  Built in 1788 as the dockyard's supply store and now attractively restored, this is one of the best accommodation options on Antigua, with great atmosphere, welcoming staff, a romantic setting by the harbour and sensible prices. The lovely old rooms, most with four-poster beds, run from US$130/90 in winter/summer. An occasional free boat ferries guests to a nearby beach.