Tobago tour on a scooter

[Al]

We have just been to Tobago for a holiday while I am recovering from carpal tunnel surgery, we hired a scooter as there are no "proper" bikes for hire to explore the Island, as you can see suitable protective clothing was worn at all times.
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The top part of the Island is very hilly and the scooter struggled a bit to get both of us up some of them, the hills into Speyside and Charlottesville were so steep we knew we would not be able to get back up them and Sue would not get off and walk up them!! so we had to hope the roads out the other side were not as steep, luckily they weren`t and we managed to get round the whole Island safely if very slowly at times.
As we were going so slow when the locaks decided to block the road we managed to stop in time.
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The Island has an Atlantic coast and a Caribbean coast, the beaches on the Caribbean sjde are far better than the Atlantic.
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And virtually empty!!
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This church was built from the bricks the ships used as ballast on the way out to the West Indies to pick up the Tobacco and sugar cane etc, the slaves, mostly women, carried the bricks on their heads nearly 5 miles to the site of the church. The grave is of the oldest slave and the board tells how the church was built.
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We did manage a fair bit of this,
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watchjng a few of these with a cocktail or three
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It wasn`t always sunny and a couple of times had to take emergency measures to keep the scooter dry by taking cover in a conveniently placed bus shelter!
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Can definitely recommend Tobago for a holiday, not particularly cheap, especially now with the pound weak everywhere, food prices about the same as here,maybe slightly higher, as we usually go to Asia for our holidays it seemed even more pricey. Everybody was friendly and helpful and the roads are very quiet out of the main towns and the locals very courteous to each other on the road, seeing the local cops carrying machine guns was a bit of a shock tho`.

Not an epic adventure by any means but a bit of a giggle and I think we went on every bit of road on the Island, some of it two or three times! and it was a lot less crowded than when we did the same thing in Bali back in June.
Took a little while to get used to being back on the GS when I got home.

Al.

[GerryB]

Very nice !

[f90x]

Yes, very nice indeed. I'm glad to see that your sandals are leather. Would have been a bit risky otherwise...

[McBoxer]

Very nice! Where did you stay? I've spent a bit of time on Tobago, as my wife hails from those parts - in fact we have a bit of land there, up in the hills between Scarborough and Castara.

We were dabbling with the idea of moving over and trying to think of what we could do with the land in order to make some money (without selling it) and bike hire was one of my ideas. However I don't think the roads on Tobago lend themselves to 'proper' bikes, or certainly not sports-bikes. GS type bikes possibly. Scooter hire to the tourists seems like a better business proposition, with maybe GS or two kept in reserve!

[dave the german]

Damn you!!!! Pictures just reinforcing how bloody cold it is here!!!!

[Al]

Al, we stayed at the Tropikist hotel at crown point, went to Castara twice, had a lovely lunch and a drink in the beach restaurant at the far right hand side of the bay(if you are standing looking at sea)really liked it there, a lot of brits/europeans there. Enjoyed the tropikist, got lively at weekends as quite a few Trinidaians? came over for the w/end,

We went all round the Island, the first time we cut over the top through the rain forest from bloody bay and back down the atlantic side, stopping at a yam festival near the argyle waterfall, second time we went up the atlantic side, as I said in the OP we weren`t sure the poor scoot could do the hill out of charlottesville so carried on out the other side and got lucky and it wasn`t as steep and managed a full circuit, stopping at Castara for a late lunch and a couple of other places for a swim and a beer.

Every body was friendly and happy to help us and tell us about the festival etc. Never been that way on holiday before as we normally head east as Asia is a lot cheaper, but have now booked to go to Grenada in may `17.

Not sure how the rental thing would go, not many places to rent a scooter, we only swa a few others all week, apparently you used to be able to rent a harley but firm went bust, most people at our hotel were our age (mid 50`s) and thought we were a bit mad for having a scooter, but they didn`t ride bikes.
Tobago is not really on backpacker trial so not that many younger people who might do bike/scooter trips around. Saw a few proper bikes but not that many, a 250 trail bike would be the bike I would opt for I think, light enough, carry two, and deal with the "interesting" variations in road surfaces!!


Al.

[GRAgusta]

Mrs A and I loved reading this adventure. We lived for two years (2013-2015) in the sister island Trinidad.

Trinidad was a marvellous, edgy adventure ... but we regularly took the ferry to Tobago for a weekend of R&R and to calm down.

I am so pleased you enjoyed your time there, and now that I am working in Kazakhstan - flying Friday - I am jealous of you enjoying your time in the sun.