Reef Bay Trail, St. John VI

By D. Bruce YoltonExtralimital

A large portion of St. John is a national park.  The Reef Bay Trail in the park has been rated one of the ten best trails in the Caribbean.  It’s a great deal of fun when you go on a guided Park Ranger tour.  The Park Service arranges for transportation to the top of the trail, provides a guide to the bottom of the trail and arranges for a boat to pick you up at the bottom!  No walking back uphill!

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Our transportation to the trail head.
Our Park Ranger guide.
Spider webs were everywhere on the way down.
This plant can be used as a “Brillo pad”.
Lots of creepy crawly insects to avoid.
Ruins from the days of the plantations.
A few mushrooms.  Termites take care of most of the decaying materials, so there weren’t that many mushrooms.
Termites
Waterfalls which had Petroglyphs below them.
The Petroglyphs were where bats appear at night to drink.  It is believed that the islanders believed that the bats were angel like visitors.
Mongooses were introduced to the Island to control rats.  However they are day hunters and ended up just being a second pest.
The Park Service has to control their population, along with other introduced mammals such as donkeys, goats and deer.
The Reef Bay Sugar Mill.
After slavery was abolished, steam power was introduced without much success.
Land Crab
Bats, the only native mammal on the island.
At the bottom of the trail is a Salt Pond…
and a nice beach area.
If you bring a bathing suit, you can swim at the nice beach.
The boat that takes you back to the Park Visitor’s Center.