Rincon Waterfalls Hike Saturday 10th September

Saturday up at 0530 for a mini bus pick up at 0600 am— Jesse arrived at 0620 but I wasn’t watching my watch! We picked up 9 other people and journeyed to the North of the Island. Being given a tour talk by Jesse our Ace driver.  The Northerly range of Mountains is the highest of 3 and contains the Rincon Valley, this is where we began our hike to the Rincon Waterfalls.  On a scale of 1-10 it was billed as an 8 on the Hike-Seekers website.  There was a gentle fall of rain while we were kitting up but this soon stopped so we began in great spirits.  Our Guide was Lawrence (Snake) he repaired Robyns’ flip-flops and gave us a pep talk before we began.  Snake is an ex army Survival Instructor with years of experience and very knowledgeable too.
  On route we stopped frequently for rests and were ably helped by Jesses’ brother Dan over some parts which needed ropes. Needless to say we were very messy by the time we arrived and pleasantly amazed by the height of the fall when we reached our destination. After lunch and a swim we set off on another route to return. This was a more gentle mule track and led to another waterfall and swim in cool mountain water. Jesse loves the water and make various attempts to climb up the falls so that he could either jump or water-slide down.  In a cave off to one side of the pool the resident bats were only slightly disturbed by the loud belly flops of Jesse enjoying himself! Snake helpfully repaired some walking boots which had begun to come delaminated and were later to loose the soles completely!
We continued back to the minivan, stopping at a local bar known of by Snake, where some of us had a refreshing beer.  Back at the minibus we changed into dry clothes and set off for Maracas Bay.  Here just on teatime we ordered a Shark-n-Bake (yum yum)  This is a ‘batter’ fried roll (very light and crispy) filled with fried shark, lettuce leaves tomatoes and coleslaw, with a side order of fries.  (Truly delicious)
  Homeward bound we were the last to be dropped off and after thanking Jesse for all his hard work driving we set about some serious resting up, tea, shower and sleep...