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Published: September 10th 2010
It seems a little strange writing a travel blog about Bermuda when I lived there for 6 and a half years, but its been included in our trip so here goes.
Bermuda was always going to be visited at some point on our trip, but we were going to go in September time, nearer the end of our trip and after we´d travelled through the US. Quite a few months ago though, a friend from Bermuda, Gary, announced his wedding date in South Africa for mid November as well as his departure from Bermuda in August. So we extended our round the world trip until December (was there really any point going home to try to find work for 2 months?!) and engineered a trip on airmiles to Bermuda to coincide with his departure date. So Dad it was all Gary´s fault that we´re not coming home yet to actually do some work!
It didn´t start well as we arrived on August 18 at Bermuda airport to find our luggage, along with about 15 other people´s, hadn´t arrived from Miami (where we had a short layover from our flight from Quito). We were dressed completely inappropriately for the weather
in trousers and still with our fleeces but I guess at least it was at night so we didn´t feel the full force of the humidity yet.
My friend Heather very kindly picked us up from the airport to drop us off at my old Ferrar´s Lane flat! Curt, who started working with KPMG when we left, had moved into my flat, but only worked in Bermuda 2 weeks each month, so had let us stay there whilst he was away, which was much much appreciated. Bermuda doesn´t exactly fit into the travellers budget but all our friend´s generosity whilst we were here, from Curt for the flat, Heather for her taxi and laundry services, and various friends and old work colleagues for meals was amazing. We hope to return the favours in the future.
It was quite funny flying into Bermuda and seeing the little island. After travelling some big distances in overnight buses it was going to be quite weird staying on an island with an area of only 21 square miles! However saying that, over the 12 days we still only made it to one end of the island, St Georges. We rented a scooter
Patrick on our rental scooter
Very embarrassing to be on a rental scooter with the little while helmets, although the rest of the traffic gives you a wide berth!for the stay, which was quite embarrassing having to wear the little white helmets that come with it, and driving more than 30 minutes on the thing is not the most comfortable so long trips out to the ends of the island (given it doesn´t actually go over about 50km/hour) wasn´t happening!
So given we didn´t have anything to unpack we went straight out to the Pickled Onion on Front Street, through the Harbour nights crowd (every Wednesday during the summer front street is shut down to traffic and stalls selling souvenirs, jewellery etc set up, also with a stage for bands etc, cool to see once, not very interesting after a few times) and met up with Gary propping up the bar. Soon enough the latest band set up (the same guy has been playing there for a while but seems to change ladies quite often.....) and it made me very nostalgic as no one does cheesy live music like Bermuda, and especially Pickled Onion. In the old days when I first got to Bermuda (2001) the Pickled Onion was the place to be on a Friday night dancing on the tables. Of course that all stopped when
they did up the place all posh and banned the dancing on tables....or was that when too many people were falling off? Anyway, a good start to the stay.
The next couple of days we just wandered around town, picking up essentials like sunglasses (the others got stolen in Buenos Aires and we´d been wearing cheapy $5 pairs), and toiletries etc. Luckily we actually got our luggage the next night as wearing jeans in the Bermuda heat isn´t the best. Yay, I could get my summer clothes out for the first time since Australia back in March!
Friday evening was of course the usual in Bermuda of 5.01 at a happy hour, this one at Lemon Tree followed by an early dinner at La Trattoria for Gary´s leaving dinner with a few friends. Back to Lemon Tree and I left Patrick to it at about 10.30pm as I wasn´t feeling the best. Needless to say, Patrick wasn´t feeling the best the next day after a 3am finish!
Saturday was a pretty normal day for Patrick in Bermuda of sitting in pubs starting with lunch in Flanagans with Kurt and then an afternoon in his old second home,
Docksiders. All these places have actually had little makeovers, Flanagans now having quite a smart new sports bar at the back (sorry, obviously I´m now speaking to the ex Bermuda crowd out there who actually know these places!) and Docksiders with another paint job but with nice new wood flooring (the toilets are however still a mess).
Sunday was very exciting for me with a visit to The Beach (the bar not the pink sandy stuff) for what still is the best breakfast which I´ve been hankering over for a while (South America can´t do a fried breakfast properly). Ok so the breakfast is $16 and we can get it in England for $10 less but yes it was still damn good. We did actually then go down to the other beach, at Elbow, for our first swim in the lovely warm sea, a bit different from the cold waters of the Galapagos. For those that haven´t been here, Bermuda really has the most amazing beaches, on our travels we still haven´t seen any that come close. What makes them special is the lovely pink sand which apparently results from the crushed remains of some red sea animals mixed
with the sand (this I did not actually know when I lived in Bermuda!). The pink sand against the bright blue sea makes for some amazing classic ´island´views.
Monday I had lunch with Stephen Caton, a colleague and friend from my ICAB days and then followed by a lovely treat of tea and cake at Hamilton Princess with Heather. This sort of thing was definitely not in the normal travellers budget, but wasn´t out of the ordinary during my Bermuda days. The Hamilton Princess is one of the old style hotels (it celebrates it´s 125 year in 2010), doing ´tea´makes you feel like you´ve gone back in time. So following that splurge we had dinner at home (Patrick spent the afternoon in Dockies), although you can´t seem to walk out of a supermarket spending less than $40, and that was just for a few burgers and rolls. Given everything is flown into Bermuda its not the cheapest place, but of course the expat non taxed salaries generally make up for that.
On Tuesday, following a lunch with Scott, an old lunch buddy from KPMG, we went with Gary to play golf at Port Royal, given it had been
redeveloped since we left (to be used as the location for the Grand Slam of golf). I admit I made poor Patrick come along in the buggy, as given the bones in his arm haven´t fused completely he couldn´t play. I obviously played pretty badly as usual but it was good fun. Port Royal has a great setting along the coast of Bermuda (although not much hasn´t got a coast given the widest point is 2 miles) and we had a great day for it. Unfortunately that made it pretty hot and sweaty work (my golf is very hard work) and the ocean looked very inviting, but we cooled down with a few beers after instead and then followed by sushi at Yashi. Since we knew we were coming back to Bermuda for a trip I´d been planning in my mind the restaurants we would visit (here on in ´the list´)! For a small place, Bermuda has quite a number of very good restaurants, Yashi definitely being one of them, with the best spicy seafood salad (yes not only had I planned restaurants, but the dishes I´d be having in them too!).
Wednesday was another lunch for me (this
is normal in Bermuda!) with Craig, my old boss, in L´Oriental (another restaurant on ´the list´) where the manager still remembers my name (ok, so I was here a lot!) followed by catching up with old colleagues at KPMG. Patrick meanwhile headed home again (Dockies) to watch Spurs do a better job of beating the Young Boys for the Champions League qualifier. We then met up with the boys and Karl and Kat to go to House of India (oh yes another on ´the list´). Karl and Kat we actually saw recently in Sydney, Australia, whilst staying with them at their fantastic house. Not content with that life, Karl received a job offer back in Bermuda (having left for 3 years) so both moved back a few months earlier. Quite weird to see them in 2 different homes on our trip!
On Thursday we went with Heather up to the town of St George´s. Up in the eastern end of the island, this was where the first permanent settlement in Bermuda was. Bermuda has maintained the quaint old town for the tourists, and with it´s cobbled streets, and old churches is quite a nice place to visit. The beaches
up there have the usual picturesque pink sand and we went to Tobacco Bay which is known for it´s good snorkelling. Patrick had a little snorkel around and saw big schools of fish while me and Heather just chilled out in the water. For lunch (of course each trip involves food) we went to an old haunt of ours, Tavern by the sea. Actually this wasn´t on ´the list´as I forgot about it but still did good pizzas as remembered.
On Friday, whilst Patrick had a (very) long lunch with his old flatmate, Rick, I went to one of my favourite tourist spots in Bermuda, Gibbs Hill Lighthouse where for still only $2.50 you can climb up to the top and see the best possible view of Bermuda. The view really is quite stunning and makes you appreciate quite how small, but very built up Bermuda is. They have however ruined the old little tea place that used to be there by making it into a posh restaurant. That night was yet another 5.01 Happy Hour, but this time at Port of Call (they´ve recently expanded with quite a posh bar), followed by taking the ferry across the harbour
to Newstead. When I first arrived, Newstead was the place to go on a Friday for happy hour. Unfortunately they closed it down in 2003, the hotel was sold and bought by Belmont who refurbished it and reopened just after we left. However now there are so many happy hour spots that it just wasn´t that busy, but I thought it was a very cool place and it has a beautiful spot on the harbour. Back into town and after some food we went to Opus which is another new spot for us and I obviously was far to in to it as too many wines later we finally got home and had the worst hangover the next day.
Having finally got up on Saturday at 11.30am when I could get out of bed without feeling sick, we headed to Elbow Beach hotel for Gary´s final lunch before heading out that evening. The waves were kicking at the beach as Hurricane Danielle was out in the ocean threatening Bermuda (but still 200ish miles away). Another sophisticated lunch, shame we had hangovers for it! Given its quite a posh spot down there the food was pretty average really, guess you´re
The boys
Gary, Patrick, Kurt and Ryan at Sea breeze cafe, Elbow paying for the view. But anyway, bye to Gary! That evening we headed over to Sarah´s, or at least the place she was doing a house sit at, for a BBQ. Patrick after his complaining the previous night at Sarah got bought a steak for his dinner whilst we all had burgers and his further complaining about his arm meant he got one of Sarah´s friends visiting from the UK to cook it for him! Incredible. Thanks Sarah and to your visitors for the bbq that evening.
Our last day on the island and we headed for Heather and Nick´s for lunch whilst taking advantage of the washer and dryer (Thanks again Heather!). We met up with Heather and Nick in Vietnam while they were on their own travels for a few months. I think we left them wanting to travel again after all our stories, so maybe we´ll see you guys somewhere again! That evening we saw Kurt´s new flat in Southampton (before having diner at Tio Pepe´s), seven years spent on White sands road in Paget prior to this and this place was some improvement, the view of Jews Bay and out to dockyard was breathtaking as
was the increase in rent he is paying I am lead to believe.
And Monday we left at 6am to fly back to Panama City (again through Miami).
Sorry, that was a bit of a day by day account that I normally don´t like to do, but I actually found this one tough to write. It would be like trying to write a blog about being at home. Bermuda is a beautiful place, we were lucky to spend so much time there and I think (hope) that it will be somewhere we´ll revisit time and time again (house sits permitting, we can´t afford it otherwise!). It was lovely to catch up with everyone again and to be able to speak to other people other than each other!
I really didn´t do Bermuda justice in this account, but hopefully the photos help!
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Kurt
non-member comment
Great to see you guys ....
Hey Tracy / Paddy. It was great to see you guys in Bermuda. See you both in a few months (and let me know about meeting up in London before our flight to S.A.) Cheers, Kurt