Unspoiled Jamaica is a walker’s paradise
I’M lucky to have been to some of the world’s loveliest exotic places.
And while I do like to read a book on the beach, my favourite places are all wild, and windy, and require lots of walking to get around – the Highlands, Cornwall and the Austrian Alps (where Rebecca comes from).
We are about to buy a place near Land’s End where we can do our creative projects in peace, and get blown about by the Atlantic winds.
But one my favourite holiday isn’t quite a holiday at all – it’s doing a research trip for a new book.
My latest took me from Nashville to Charleston, but the best research trip was to Jamaica, where Scatterwood is set – 1692, sugar plantations, pirates, sunken treasure and conspiracy, you get the idea!
Jamaica has spawned so many myths I imagined a hot, jungly place populated with cool, garishly-dressed musicians
Get away from the tourist traps, though, and it’s a friendly, laid-back, unspoiled country with beautiful scenery, wild places to walk, and stunning secret hideaways where you can be completely alone.
It’s like the West Country without the clotted cream.
You can visit an abandoned fortified plantation house (Stokes Hall), climb to the top of the lighthouse at Morant or nose through the ruins of Port Royal, once the most sinful town in the Caribbean.
You might even be allowed to visit the descendants of the Maroons, runaway slaves who kept the British Empire at bay for decades with a combination of courage, cunning and extraordinary fighting skills, and are the real heroes of Scatterwood.
And if you’re really lucky, you might find Jonai touting for business on the side of the road near Reach Falls.
He might show you the parts of the river day-trippers don’t see, the dappled pools and secret caves.
You might get to swim – and maybe this will scare you as much as it did me – down through the submerged tunnel into the hidden cave behind the waterfall where escaped slaves once took refuge.