While the driftwood at Blackrock Beach was beautiful, the beach wasn’t named for the trees. It was named for the actual black rocks scattered along the shore. We first saw them to the right when we descended onto the beach, from the trail.
But since there wasn’t much to explore on that side of the beach, we went left, taking us through the driftwood I wrote about last week.
Pre-Sunset
Between and beyond the driftwood was where we found the black rocks.
And much like the driftwood, some had become home to things living and dead. Maybe, mostly dead.
Pools had also formed between some of the rocks, and many were covered with a green layer of moss and algae. These are some of the best pictures I took all year in 2017.
Beyond this, the path grew rockier and we had to scramble over them to get to the other side of the beach.
The other side of the beach was a bit trickier to navigate as there was no way around the black rocks for a while. And as we learned the hard way, the rocks were soft, and along with being slippery, some tended to crumble under your feet when you walked on them. I set my camera aside after that, to watch where I was going.
The “death-defying” scramble over the treacherous rocks was totally worth it, though. When we finally made it to the end of the beach, we were met with this bridge, stretching across the ocean.
We also found a graveyard of mussells. I had never seen anything like this. It was as beautiful as it was morbid.
This was also where we ramped up our shell-collecting efforts.
The Sunset
Around this time, two things happened. The first was that Andrew called to find out why on earth we weren’t back yet.
The second was that the sun began to set.
That’s when we noticed what time it was, and that we’d been hiking for three hours and needed to hurry back.
As you can see, we had quite a bit of mud and slush to navigate our way through. Winston took the longer route, but I put my long legs to good use.
As it was with the driftwood, when the sun began to sink into the horizon, it cast an orange glow over everything else that made them even more beautiful. Maybe even me!
But if not me, most certainly the beautiful landscape. The black rocks, the pools between them, and the algae took on an ethereal glow.
The Name-Sakes
It took three posts to do it, but maybe now you see what I mean when I said there was plenty to see at Blackrock Beach. There was no way I could leave without ensuring I got a good shot of the rocks that had given the beach its name, so with that in mind, I closed out my shots for the day with the set below.
I leave you to guess whether or not this was a set of three rocks of varying sizes, or the same rock from different distances and angles. 🤔
And so ends my final post of the very last trip I took in 2017 from the 18th to the 22nd of December. I think it was an excellent closing to a year of happiness and adventures.
Next week, however, it’s time to return to the true tropics, with another cultural post about Jamaica.
Keep an eye out!
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*All photos of Alexis Chateau (me!) were captured by Winston Murray.