Go East Young Man

Yeah, yeah, I know- wrong direction.....

Actually Sunday we did go west and headed to the Carambola Gardens in Sandy Bay. This is over 40 acres of flora with a fairly easy hike up a mountain to a beautiful vista at the top.
We meet the owner, Bill Brady who happens to be wearing a Red Sox hat and even though he is not from the Boston area, he is a big time Sox fan so we spent a bit of time talking baseball with him.
Since it is a Sunday in the slow season he doesn't have any guides on duty but the oaths are clear and everything is well marked and we would prefer to go at our own pace anyway so we set off to see what we can see.
Dave and I really like to walk around in any natural environment and just look at things. Seeing the way a tree grows, seeing flowers, watching small animals in their surroundings is just so cool and peaceful.
Here are some of the best things we saw at the gardens:

Like my family tree...full of nuts!!!

Dave spots the coolest things....a whip snake

As we turned a corner this came into view like three-headed beast - very cool.

After we returned to our villa we called for a boat ride over to Hole In The Wall, dive bar and restaurant. This place really is just a hole in the wall but the beer is cold, the food is pretty good, albeit a little expensive, the people are nice and since it is only accessible by boat the owner sends his guy out to pick you up and bring you his place and back.. Just a good old fashioned hang out and we head home full and a few beers heavier...LOL.

Monday is really our east end exploration day. As usual we start our day with Dave's special vacation breakfast, I think this day it was bacon, eggs and toast and with a full belly we head to see the true east end. We are hoping to find a decent beach to hang out on for a while and going east means dirt roads. So, with our trusty Eon we journey out as far as Camp Bay which seem like a nice secluded beach but damn it is windy and the sand is whipping across our legs and we just can't stay here. We stop at a couple of other beaches but they are all right in the wind and it is so strong so we keep looking. We stumble upon a place called Paya Bay which is a resort, a naturalist resort as a nice young man tells us and while they would allow us to stay, Dave doesn't want to make the nudists feel uncomfortable (at least that's what he said), so we decide not to stay.

By this point we are actually heading back west and end up a place called Turquoise Bay which seems to have a nice beach and it is a bit protected from the wind. So we have a couple of beers while hanging in the water and then we notice along the shoreline several small shells and as we look further, some of them actually still have their little crabs living in them. We find a couple of souvenir shells and then head back the house where we have some leftover pizza and a few beers.

Another successful day of vacation,