The botanical gardens are just across the road from Windsor Park Stadium, and in some photos you can see one of the stands.

Overall the match was a great success. The cricket was entertaining, the crowds were large on each day, which was a bit of a surprise, especially considering the match was played from Monday to Friday during normal working hours, and the weather – which can be very unpredictable in Dominica – saw the rain stay away and sunshine prevail for the entire week.

The Venue

Windor Park played host to only its second test match, the first being last year when the West indies played host to India. Surrounded by mountains covered in lush green tropical rainforest on one side, and Roseau and the Caribbean Sea to the other, there can’t be many grounds in better or more picturesque locations.

The Match

Australia won the toss and decided to bat, getting off to a shaky start, losing their first wicket early then stuttering their way to 105-3. The West Indies had an excellent afternoon and applied constant pressure, eventually reducing Australia to 169-7. With the West Indies smelling blood and hometown boy Shane Shillingford bowling with turn and bounce, they would have expected to knock off the tail cheaply and begin their chase. Matthew Wade had other ideas. He survived until the close of play, then took the game away from WI by adding a quickfire 80-odd runs in the morning session of day two. Ably supported by the lower order, the Aussies were eventually bowled out for 328, a total which had seemed virtually impossible at the start of the day.

The West Indies run chase started as their bowling had left off, confidence drained, heads down and looking shaky and battered. Kraigg Brathwaite, the young Bajan opener, again looked out of his depth and soon played a loose shot away from his body to be dismissed for a duck, leaving the Windies 1-1. Wickets fell at regular intervals with only Kieron Powell and the stalwart Chanderpaul managing any resistance. Reduced to 120-8, the follow on looked likely and a game wrapped up inside three days a very real possibility.

Late on in the evening session, and the first hour of day three produced a fightback from Rampaul, whose aggressive 31 gave some of the impetus back to West Indies. Chanderpaul and Roach shared a vital 10th wicket stand of 32 to give the West Indies at least a fighting chance of salvaging something from the match.

With a first innings deficit of 100, the West Indies needed to dismiss the Australians for a low score (around 150) to stand any chance of winning, and after reducing the Australians to 25-2, it even looked possible for a while. That was until Ricky Ponting arrived at the crease for what was to be his final test match innings in the West Indies. In typically defiant style, he and Ed Cowan – also under pressure after a relatively difficult series – put together a partnership of 87 to effectively put the game out of reach of the West Indies. After Cowan and Ponting were dismissed, the wickets fell at regular intervals until the close of play on day three.

Resuming on day 4 at 200-6, with a lead of 310, the Australians would have hoped to seal the win and have day 5 off, but some good bowling from West Indies and in particular Shillingford who finished with 10 wickets in the match, saw Australia all out for 259, to leave the West Indies chasing what seemed an impossible 370 to win.

Another failure from the West Indies top order saw them struggling at 45-3, with Darren Bravo and Chanderpaul at the crease in the early afternoon in the 24th over of the innings. With some dogged determination this pair batted for 35 overs and added 110 for the fourth wicket, with Chanderpaul passing 10,000 test runs in the process. During this partnership the Aussies looked increasingly frustrated and the healthy crowd became ever more animated. Bravo eventually went for 45 after edging one to a diving Wade, and the rejuvenated Australians were visibly relieved as they formed a huddle around Wade and celebrated breaking this dangerous-looking partnership.

Chanderpaul fell to the last ball of the day after the Australians called for a review, which showed him plum LBW to a Clarke delivery that appeared to be hitting middle stump about halfway up. This reduced the West Indies to 173-5 and effectively won the match for the Australians.

Day five was to bring about another twist in the tale. Needing almost 200 to win with only 5 wickets remaining, the cause looked lost until Sammy arrived on the scene. Hitting a powerful 61 – his best test match effort – he and the rest of the tail showed the top order how it should be done. Despite some good resistance, wickets fell and local hero Shane Shillingford arrived at the crease with the score on 245-9. Needing 135 to win, Sammy and Shillingford looked comfortable at the crease and gave the Aussies a scare by adding another 49 runs to bring them within 75 of the Australian total and victory.

It wasn’t to be however, with Sammy eventually dismissed for 61 after he top-edged a sweep to fine leg to bring a close to what was in the end a hard fought victory by the Aussies, a resilient display from the West Indies, and an all-round entertaining four and a half days of test match cricket.

The Audience

Where’s the rest of the path?” She continued, looking across to the concrete base on the other side of the ravine, as I surveyed the rope which hung precariously and led to the riverbed 40 feet below.

“I’m not sure.” I replied. “You hold on here and I’ll climb down and have a look.”

We had spent the previous hour first climbing up, and then scrambling down an almost vertical path cut into the forest, guided only by the sporadic, freshly painted blue and yellow trail markers to reach this point, and we appeared to be stuck.

I used the rope to climb to the bottom of the ravine, but when I got there, I saw neither a way out, nor – more worryingly – any specks of blue and yellow, marking the continuation of the trail.

“Thats it, we can get down, but we can’t get back up on the other side!” I cried up to Yami. “Hold on, I’m coming back up.” Things didn’t look too good.

The day had started well. We left the house at first light and begun our hike from Watten Waven shortly after. The first half an hour had been on the roads from Screws Sulpur Spa, climbing steadily to Trafalgar, where we had headed onto the trail proper, and up a steep incline until we were high above the valley below. Two hours after starting we reached Laudat, a village at the base of the Morne Trois Pitons National Park. In Laudat the path led away from the national park and followed the trail to Middleham Falls, before veering into the national park about 45 minutes later.

After entering the national park the trail wasn’t the most entertaining. Reasonably flat, it passes through fairly young rainforest, closed in on all sides with virtually nothing to see. The next 90 minutes passed slowly as we trudged along, merely trying to reach the end of this section, and hopefully into some more scenic areas.

With stomachs rumbling, we breathed a sigh of relief as we reached a bridge, recently constructed for the trail, and a small picnic area, where we immediately devoured our packed lunches.

With fresh energy and renewed motivation we set out again. I had a basic map of the trail, from which I estimated we had completed about 70% of this section, and guessed we had about two hours to walk to reach the finish.

Almost immediately after setting out again, we reached a junction in the trail. There were two signs for the trail, the first being an older version, which pointed left. The second, which was of the newer design, pointed to the right.

We followed the newer sign, and took the path which led off to the right. This turned out to be where things went wrong.

The path almost immediately led uphill. We had walked uphill a lot over the course of the first three segments, so were fairly accustomed to it. The length and steepness of the climb, which in some areas had ropes to assist, began to take its toll on Yami and she began to lose morale. This really came to a head on the descent, which was steep and slippery. By the time we reached the bottom of the descent, Yami wanted to go home. I did too.

As we neared the ravine I saw some freshly painted signs, which I took to be signs marking the end of the trail, however as I neared them, I saw they were actually warning signs for the approaching ravine crossing.

After scrambling to the bottom of the ravine and being unable to find the continuation of the path, I climbed back up.

“It’s a pretty dodgy climb down, and I can’t see a way back up on the other side.” I said. “I think we had better go back the way we came.”

Yami’s face dropped. “How far have we got to go back?” She asked, almost in tears.

“To the junction after where we had lunch.” I replied, knowing this probably wasn’t going to help improve her darkening mood.

To make matters worse, it was now about 3pm and I wasn’t sure how far we would have to backtrack. At 6pm it would be dark, and we had at least an hour to walk before we reached the spot where we had lunch, then I hadn’t a clue if we would have to continue to backtrack all the way to Laudat, or if the left fork in the trail would lead us to civilisation in a reasonable period.

I didn’t really fancy spending a night in the woods with no food and very little water, but at that moment it seemed quite a real possibility.

With darkening mood, we clambered back the way we had came, reaching our lunch spot an hour later. In this hour I managed to slip and simutaneously lose my sunglasses and injure my ribs, which left my mood even blacker! At the junction, we reasoned that we’d take the left fork in the road and see where it headed for 20 minutes, then reassess.

Things turned back in our favour, and 20 minutes later we were coasting along on a wider footpath, listening to the sound of traffic in the distance. 10 minutes after that, we emerged on the main road from the airport to Roseau, where we decided that our adventures were done for the day, so we took a bus back to Watten Waven, via Roseau, and collected the car, relieved about the prospect of sleeping in a bed that night, rather than the forest floor!

Postscript. A few weeks later, we met some people who had also hiked that section, and had also found themselves in the same position and had also turned back, however they had later learned that the path followed the bottom of the ravine for a while, and further downstream there were ropes leading up and out the otherside.

On a clear day it is often possible to see the neighboring islands of Martinique to the south, as well as Guadeloupe and Marie Galante to the north.

On a Sunday afternoon we drove to Portsmouth and beyond, crossing the island through the crater of an extinct volcano.

From the crater we could see the Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea.

Because of the mountains and steep terrain, the vast majority of the island remains pristine and untouched.

The east coast receives a constant battering from winds and the ocean. The sea is rougher and can be dangerous for swimming, but the bays and coves are just as pretty.

Look carefully at how the trees grow sideways due to the constant winds blowing from across the Atlantic.

A local historian has a good site which tells the story of the Cabrits, from the geological formation to present day. Read it here.

The town of Portmouth lies in Prince Rupert Bay, a natural harbour, a popular refuge for passing sailboats.

The English cut down all the trees on Cabrits for better lines of sight to see passing ships. Today it has all regrown.

There is also some interesting wildlife.

This part would lead us from Soufriere to Bellevue Chopin, high up in the mountains, so before we set off we knew we were in for a climb – over 500m according to the sign!

And climb we did, right from the outset, until we were way above Soufriere.

Upon reaching the summit, we were glad of a village and a chance to refill water bottles.

Before heading straight back into the rainforest – and more hills.

It wasn’t just uphill, there were some downhills too.

Along the trail were some unusual insects

And a chance for a Tarzan impression

Overall the walk took about six hours, and involved a lot more climbing than segment one.

The Waitukubuli National Trail (WNT) is 184 km (115 miles) long and is made up of fourteen (14) segments. It runs from the southern village of Scott’s Head to the Cabrits National Park in the North, and comprises a series of trail networks.

One Saturday morning, Yami and I hiked the first of the 14 segments – from Scott’s Head to Soufriere.

The trail started off at sea level, however it led uphill almost immediately. The trail markers are a mixture of signs and blue/yellow strips of paint.

It took a while, but we gradually climbed until we were way above sea level, looking down at Scott’s Head peninsula.

At the top we took a short break to appreciate the view, and celebrate making it thus far from the village, which now seemed so far below!

We followed the signs through a pasture, avoiding the grazing cows.

We continued to follow the various kinds of trail markers

As we got further into the rainforest, we spotted various fruit trees

After about 4 hours we made it to Soufriere, where we caught a bus back to Scott’s Head to have a swim, collect the car, and watch some local fishermen haul in the catch of the day.

More information about the trail can be found on the website, or on Facebook.

We did get to see a pod of dolphins, which swam along our boat for a good while, enjoying the speed.

I’ve put some of the photos of Dominica as seen from the sea, and some of the dolphins.