“FOR SALE A Black Ford Fiesta not running but in excellent condition” (St. Helena Independent July 20, 2012)
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Colin's Motors is combination garage, rental agency and scrapyard. A visitor once collected a vehicle from Colin, the current owner's father. The visitor tested the gears and the car wouldn't shift into fourth. He expressed concern to Colin. 'Why would you need to shift into fourth?' asked Colin and Colin, of course, was right.
My hire car is a Ford Ikon, made in South Africa. I am not responsible for scrapes, dents and missing front hubcap. It is an achievement to get into third and, so far, the brakes are brilliant.
The car has taken me into landscapes, which can only be described (no hyperbole here) as stunning. Along the way, I have met switchbacks, hairpin bends, narrow lanes, narrower lanes, too many blind corners, goats, ascents and descents on which a gear lower than first would have been helpful.
The horn recalls the dashboard Virgin Marys one sees in Catholic countries. Not always effective, but comforting. Oncoming islanders have been unfailingly courteous to a clearly incompetent motorist.
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To save you asking, on August 25 the price for a litre of petrol was set at £1.48. This is in effect until the next delivery in November. £1.48 equaled $2.32 (CDN) on August 31 when Toronto gas prices were approximately $1.29 a litre.
One U.S. gallon equals 3.785 litres. Thus, with the Canadian and U.S. dollars more or less at par, the price of petrol on St. Helena is approximately $8.78 (CDN) a U.S. gallon.
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Oh dear, oh dear! Where to begin on this dot of volcanic soil that will - until my dotage - be so wonderfully in my memory and heart (also no hyperbole here). St. Helena’s landscape varies from the exquisitely to savagely beautiful.
Such beguiling names on the map: Asses Ears, Iron Pot, Turk’s Cap, Gates of Chaos, Lot’s Wife, Cuckold’s Point, Fox’s Folly, Two Gun Saddle.
I'm at High Peak looking south. To my left is a drop of hundreds of metres. The winds have blown - unimpeded - from Africa or South America, it doesn't much matter which. I am alone as so often in this island's remarkable places. The air is clearer than the locally distilled gin and the only sounds an occasional donkey or motor far below.
Click on the photo below and, for perspective, you can see a van.
Click on the photo below and, for perspective, you can see a van.
The view from Halley's Mount.
In 1677, the astronomer Edmund Halley came here 'to catalogue the stars of the Southern Hemisphere' (what, to our blasé age, breathtaking ambition, even audacity!) and observe a transit of Mercury. The same year he was elected to the Royal Society. He was only twenty. These lonely stones mark one of the great scientific achievements.
Halley and his assistant stayed nearby at Hutts Gate.
Lot's Pillar, a volcanic pinnacle rising above the road near Sandy Bay
Here’s the bay ...
... where cannon lie just beyond the Atlantic's reach and below multicoloured (in the right light), otherworldly crags ...
... while others command ancient fortifications.
Nearby, a scene from Mexico.
A short distance and, but for flax, images from England, dark, green and broody.
Or a B.C. coastal forest.
The car conquers another incline. Levelwood? Ha! There's not a level metre of ground on the island!
