seriously steep - and then some

One of our first walks was following local Saint Stedson Stroud. Stedson has been responsible for the discovery for two extinct plants (boxwood and bastard gumwood) on St Helena and for finding an extinct fern on Ascension. Being a Saint his ancestry includes mountain goat (and we mean that in a positive way!!) - a feature that he displayed during the day. The day started off well with the opportunity to get some good moody photographs of scrubwood (Commidendrum rugosum) one of the commoner endemic Saint Helena plants - if you can call a species that totals probably below 1000 individuals as common!

                              Photo: Commidendrum robustum scrubwood

So off we started off on the walk that Stedson described as "a bit of a walk".

We passed the site of his boxwood (Mellisia begonifolia) discovery:

                                Photo: Stedson Stroud with the last wild plants of boxwood Mellisia begonifolia on St Helena



The scenery was amazing, but starting to get worryingly steep:

Now, try and picture this: walking on rough ballbearings scattered on a 30-50 degree slope that drops ever steeper either into a deep deep gully or over 300 m coastal cliffs straight into the sea. You keep thinking - or more accurately - NOT thinking "Don't look down. Don't look down. Just relax" and all the calming mantras one can think of, plus singing songs in your head to take to displace the gathering fear. Then Stedson informed us "That's the easier part, it gets a bit steeper now". We did try it ....



 ... and then thought discretion is the better part of valour and headed up a still very steep slope back up 400 m to the ridge. Our boss, Jamie, with many reservations, continued to follow Stedson. Here's a photo as they approach the bad bit (look closely, you can see them both):

We eventually reunited with Stedson and Jamie. Jamie had a few choice words to say about the route (mostly - actually, all, unrepeatable). Even Stedson admitted it wasn't quite what he remembered. Just sooo glad we took our own path!




Stedson wants us to go on a walk to look for an unusual plant he saw a few years back. He describes it as "a bit of a mission". We're thinking about it.