Driving to Moon Cottage

Posted on by Ian C.

The roads here in St John are incredible, constantly uphill or down, tight turns, switchbacks, blind side roads – thankfully the speed limit is 20 and we have a four wheel drive Jeep for when things get really tricky!
I’ve tried taking pictures but the roads always look much flatter and easier than they really are, so how about this picture taken from the other side of Coral Bay:

The cluster of homes at the bottom is where we start climbing, straight up the road you see to the right of them. Then a 160 right climbing to a near 180 left and climbing again – you can see the two angled lines slicing through the trees going up the hill.
After that, it gets challenging; the road is dirt and rocks with big potholes and bigger culverts to negotiate. My MINI wouldn’t make the first 100 yards!
At the very end, to the house, is a straight climb at about 25 degrees, having to pull a severe left at the top in to the parking spot, before hitting any trees. But it’s quite fun …

Here’s a Google Maps view of the winding road (though you can’t see the climb in this view):

And here’s my attempt to show the climb of the last few yards to the parking spot:

Moon Cottage

Posted on by Ian C.

Yesterday Margaret and I flew from Boston via San Juan to St Thomas in the US Virgin islands, rented a Jeep and took the ferry to St Johns where we were met by Bob, who took us on a short tour of the island before guiding us to our home for the next week, the beautiful and peaceful Moon Cottage.
High on a hill with very steep and narrow roads to reach it (hence the Jeep) but well worth it once you get there – look at the views:

This view is available always, even when you’ve just woken up:

Even at night it’s beautiful (though at night very noisy with all the tree frogs and other night animals!):

Inside is lovely too – these pictures from when we arrived last night, and a few outside, this morning: