History Society of Cave Hill: December 2012

Finding our way from Cave Hill campus to Codrington College we found Dr.David Browne ready to lead us into the the scenery that extended from before our eyes and off into the distance.As Browne put it" We'll be walking for 3 to 4 hours" and we were off. Browne an avid hiker instructed us to stay close together as we trekked onward at a steady pace only stopping to view the untapped natural streams and to try some deceptive dunks(turned out to be 'sun ripe'). We emerged from the canopy of foliage into Consett Bay. From there following the old train route, we headed uphill above the shoreline through rock faces that had been cut down by slaves using nothing but hand tools. After about 20 minutes we emerged at a clearing which would soon be identified as Fortesque, St.Phillip. From there we would begin the descent that would lead us back to Consett Bay and onto the most challenging trail of the hike. "The Middle Passage" as it has been now dubbed saw us follow the Atlantic shoreline from Consett Bay to Bath beach and was metaphorically speaking, as treacherous as it had been a few hundred years before. It looked easy enough at first but it was high tide and as it turned out this leg of the journey would take us more than an hour to complete.Scaling rocks and timing the tide we safely negotiated this treacherous trail under the watchful eyes of Dr.Browne who might have been, in another life a marine, based on his "leave no man behind" attitude. We made it past the roaring Atlantic ocean only losing trinkets such as shoes, soles of shoes, walking sticks, a bottle, and maybe a cell phone or two, as I said token items. Sea soaked, and trudging through the coarse, heavy sand the east coast offers, we made our way past Old Man Jack Mine and onto Bath. Here we stopped for a few minutes to assess our losses and refuel . Undaunted we climbed up the Bath trail that would take us past the Earth Station and up Bath hill. We paused briefly along the way and Spooner and I partook of some local variety of grapes ( don't remember what they were called but they were very juicy indeed!)
Then we tackled.... Bath Hill... (pause for emphasis)
On our way back to Codrington as night quickly surrounded us, a sense of pride beamed across our faces as we recognized that we had survived "The Hike."