Beach Hopping with Banke – York to John Obey

Scrambling over the rocks it took us around 2 hours to reach York.  This is a fishing village with a pretty small beach.  We met a couple of fishermen there mending their nets who confirmed what we thought – no more scrambling as to get to Black Johnson we would have to take to the road again.

Fishing boats under repair at York

Mending the nets

We set off up the long hill to the main road where we planned to catch a taxi to Black Johnson.  It turns out not many cars go along the peninsula road and even less taxis.  Finally one came past.  It already had 4 passengers but that’s no problem we can easily squeeze two in the front seat and 4 in the back.  So all crammed in together off we went.  At one point it looked like the driver was planning to squeeze in a seventh but luckily he thought better of it.  Ten minutes later we were deposited at the top of the track for the 15 minute downhill walk to the beach.

This is truly a stunning beach and on reflection we should have started at Big Water to walk the full length of it.  We had a much need soft drink and admired the views before setting out towards John Obey.

Another view to remember

the flora

We had been told that there was an old slave route between these two beaches and were directed to the start.  There were now three of us as Black Leo, a lovely wee dog, joined us.  Boy were we glad he did!  So off we delved into the forest .  An hour, they said, and you’ll be there.  The path was quite hard to make out but we made good progress for about 15 minutes.  Then?  Disaster – a fallen down tree blocked our way.  Most people would have turned back but not us two intrepid travellers, no we thought we could find a way round.  Bad idea.

Black Leo showing us the way

An hour and a half later after being scraped by bushes, tripping over creepers and worst of all attacked by ants we were back where we started.  The funniest moment was when we stepped on the ants at the entrance to one, of many, small coves.  Funny as we threw down our belongings to strip off our clothes to brush off the wee buggers.  We gave up on the forest at that point and clambered over many rocks to finally see the sight we had left behind. Black Leo with us all the way looking a trifle perplexed at what we were up to.

Back here again!

Worth seeing twice though

At this point if we could have been beamed back to Freetown we both would happily have gone but no we carried on….