Cabrits National Park

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We are staying at Sea Cliff cottages in the north east and you can walk down a couple of hundred steps to the beach here. It’s black sand and the Hodges river arrives here, letting you swim in the sea then swim in the river to wash off the salt. We picked up a coconut and took it back, had to borrow a machete from our hosts to get in. It was pretty hard work hacking through the husk but we got there.

Fort Shirley and Cabrits National Park are in very north of Dominica - one of those places on the tourist route that you’re not sure whether to visit. It sounds like an old fort and not much else, but they didn’t mention just how unreal most of it is now. The main fort has been restored but in the forest the trees have spent the last 150 years taking back the other stone buildings. We took the trail and saw a snake, iguana and hermit crabs before coming across derelict buildings with ficus trees growing on them, in them and through them. Quite unreal. Either an Indiana Jones set or nature showing it’s power. There were also canon mounted in the battery just where they were left 150 years ago, not moved, painted or re-mounted, just lying there. Definitely a place worth visiting. I hope they don’t “tidy” it up and make it all neat one day, it’s fantastic as it is.

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