We woke early this morning, just in time to see our ship dock in Saint John’s, the capital of Antigua. If you play the video above with the volume up, you will hear the dawn chorus of cockerels – it was a right cock-off 🙂 We hired a grey jeep this morning and first stop was Lorna’s choice…

Welcome to the Sir Vivian Richards Cricket Ground. The last time we visited this site, it was still under construction by a Chinese workforce.

We paid the princely sum of $2 each for stadium entry and took a couple of quick snaps of the Maestro. One outside the entrance with his statue and one inside the front entrance, of a local artist’s depiction of Viv’s emphatic, stylish approach to the game.

Although not allowed on the hallowed turf, we did manage a shot of the Sir Curtly Ambrose Stand.

We then headed south across the island through the parishes of Saint John, Saint Peter and Saint Paul to Falmouth Harbour. Here we climbed atop Shirley Heights and wondered at the views eastward to Half Moon Bay and the parish of Saint Philip (below). On the bluff, if you enlarge the photo, you can see Eric Clapton’s sprawling eco-estate.

The view westward to Nelson’s Dockyard and English harbour (below) wasn’t bad either. This is probably our favourite view from our travels so far.

This whole area is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site and, of course, the result is an additional $15 entry fee each. We drove back down the hill into Nelson’s Dockyard where our next stop included a well-earned, wonderful lunch and a cold beer at Pillar’s Restaurant.

The restaurant was named after the pillars that were built in 1797 to support a boathouse and sail loft. This structure was used by the British navy to repair sails for its fleet, including Nelson’s 28-gun frigate Boreas. 72 masons built the large circular stone pillars in 15-months. A waterway between the pillars was used for hoisting sails from boats through a trap-door in the sail loft floor. After the building was destroyed by a hurricane in 1871 all that remain are the stone pillars, which have been capped with concrete to guard against erosion.

After lunch, we toured Nelson’s Dockyard and marvelled at some of the amazing super yachts and wondered at the history of the remaining buildings that continue to withstand the extreme elements.

Our drive back to Saint John’s along the coast road took in as many beaches as possible out of Antigua’s claimed 365, one for each day of the year. We passed Jolly Harbour golf club on the way, which brought back memories of Dad and I playing millionaire’s golf on Christmas Eve some years ago now. We managed to return to the harbour drop-off point with 5-minutes to spare.

Off for an early night, as we are due to report at 8am tomorrow ahead of our helicopter flight over Monserrat. Pics to follow. R&L xxx