Bermuda Cruise – Day 4, part 2, Gibbs Hill Lighthouse
June 2nd, 2009Continuing with our second day in Bermuda, we got off the bus at Gibbs Hill Lighthouse. Since the lighthouse is so close to Horseshoe Bay Beach, we thought it would be a great place to get a wonderful view of the island. The bus stop is actually a bit of a walk from the lighthouse. I should mention once again how stroller unfriendly that Bermuda seems to be, in general. We were glad that we had the stroller, but we had to make careful decisions about which side of the road to walk. The roads were often fairly narrow and somewhat curvy.
The plan was to eat at the Tea Room at the lighthouse for lunch. My guidebook said it was fairly cheap, which is rare in Bermuda. I guess food is so expensive because they have to import so much? Whatever the reason, Bermuda food is pricey. Apparently, Bermuda has the highest cost of living in the world. Anyway, back to our story. We wanted to eat at the Tea Room, but we found out that it isn’t open on Mondays and Tuesdays. Bummer. We didn’t have any other food options nearby, so we bought a candy bar each at the gift shop. Fortunately, we had some suitable food for Maddie in the backpack (don’t worry, we didn’t feed her chocolate bars for lunch).
We bought tickets to go up into the lighthouse at the gift shop, and we decided to take turns going up to take in the views. I’m so glad we opted to take turns! The stairs are very narrow and seem to spiral to the top forever. I can’t imagine trying to carry a squirmy toddler up those stairs, even if she had been strapped in the Ergo carrier. Yikes! I got to the top and found the tiny door that led onto the balcony. I stooped through the door and was struck by a bunch of wind and the simultaneous realization that I was in a really high place in the open air. My body reacted with intense fear. I took the photo above and got the heck back inside the lighthouse. I just hoped that Gabe would be braver than me.
Thankfully, he was. He said the views were incredible, and he took a bunch of photos.
You can see how crazy the development is in Bermuda. It’s one of the most densely populated countries in the world. You can also see that Bermuda is made up of many, many islands (approximately 138).
A stranger offered to take our photo when we were all safely on the ground again.
Maddie enjoyed the grounds of the lighthouse much better than her morning at the beach.
She played in the grass a bit.
She pointed at our ship, which we could see from the lighthouse hill. Ok, maybe she wasn’t actually pointing at the ship, but who knows really. Our ship was in that general direction.
We took a few photos of our ship from afar. The other ship is from the Norwegian cruise line. Our ship is the one on the left.
We posed for several photos here since Maddie was in a good mood.
We opted to collapse and carry the stroller and use the Ergo carrier for Maddie on the way back to the bus stop. Strangers took our photos everywhere!
We were pretty tired on the walk back to the bus stop, which was fairly confusing as the stops are not clearly marked. We weren’t quite sure at first if we remembered correctly where the bus had stopped to drop us off. We ended up walking too far and needed to retrace some of our steps. The bus stop was marked by a blue pole with no words, instructions, or maps. Just a blue pole. You’d think the least they could do would be to write BUS STOP on it, right?
To make matters worse, at least one pink bus passed us by while we were waiting. We just weren’t completely sure that we were in the right place! Finally, a bus stopped for us and we were on our way back to the Dockyards. We had limited time to get back on the ship before sail away.
This bus seemed to stop EVERYWHERE. We saw lots of locals as they seem to use the bus system frequently. Everyone in Bermuda seems to know each other, which is neat. The bus drivers honk and wave when they pass each other. Several times they would say to one of the locals on the bus, sitting near the front, “that was Jerry” or “that was Mike.” I hear that the schoolchildren also use the pink buses, but we did not experience this ourselves.
Maddie was rather antsy, though the passengers around us were nice and seemed to really love her. She got a ton of attention everywhere we went. We were sitting near the front of the bus where a row of seats is along the side and faces another row of seats on the opposite side (so that we are traveling sideways instead of facing the front). Maddie was sitting on my lap for most of the ride, and we had a couple to our left from one of the cruise ships. They were interacting with Maddie and helping to entertain her a little bit. At one point, the lady noticed Maddie’s underdeveloped foot and nudged her husband to show him. She did this discretely, but not discretely enough as Gabe noticed from across the aisle. Oh well, we weren’t upset about it, just something that makes us a little sad.
We were so happy to finally make it to Kings Wharf (the Dockyards). Maddie had had just about enough of sitting still on a bus. She was definitely reaching her breaking point, especially since she had not taken a normal length nap. We worried a bit about how dinner might be that night! We made our way back to the ship and went to our cabin to get ready for dinner and sail away. More about this day in my next post…
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