Johnny Horn Trail

Well the mosquitoes have finally gotten better so we have been taking hikes around the island.  Last week we went on the Johnny Horn Trail.  This trail starts in Coral Bay (about ½ mile from our apartment) and ends in Leinster Bay.  The Johnny Horn Trail was named after Johan Horn who was second in command to Governor Gardelin in St. Thomas and Commandant of St. John around the time of the slave rebellion in 1733. He was the Chief Bookkeeper and Chief Merchant of the Danish West India and Guinea Company on St. Thomas.  The trail is 1.8 miles long and follows the mountain ridge through a dry upland forest environment. There are some steep hills reaching an approximate elevation of 400 feet.  The trail started on a dirt road and for the first 40 minutes we climbed up the road (often wondering if we were on a trail or on a private drive).  

 

 

Luckily there were several signs along the way that encouraged us to keep walking. 

 

 

We finally got to the official start of the trail where it became a path through the woods.  Our first major stop on the trail was Windy Hill.  This is where the ruins of the James Murphy Estate house are located.  At the end of the 18th century, the Annaberg Plantation as well as five other contiguous estates came under the control of James Murphy, a wealthy St. Thomas merchant, ship owner and slave trader. The consolidated lands were called Annaberg, which became the largest and most successful plantation on St. John. From this estate house Mr. Murphy could view all of his vast holdings.  The views were incredible and we spent some time enjoying them.

 

 

 

 

From there we continued downhill to the guardhouse.  This small fortification was built on this location, called Leinster Point, because it overlooked two critical passages, the Fungi Passage, between Whistling Cay and Mary Point, and the Narrows, which separate Great Thatch and St. John. The guardhouse was equipped with cannons and manned by 16 soldiers.  For those of you following closely, you will probably remember that we visited these ruins in an earlier episode.  Anyway, from there it was then a short hike down to Leinster Bay.

Unfortunately we could not put off our final decision any longer … we still had not decided how to get back to our apartment.  We debated about hiking back over the trail but that seemed somewhat anticlimactic.  So we decided to continue on the Leinster Trail to Annaberg (about 1 mile) and then continue on the road to Centerline Road where we would reenact the disastrous hike we had with mosquitoes several weeks ago (only going down-hill).  The Leinster Trail is a fun hike which we have negotiated several times … it follows the shoreline and is very flat and breezy.  Once we got to the main road, it seemed like we had definitely made a good decision.  The road was flat and shady with not much traffic.  We even got to watch some windsurfers in Mary’s Creek (and scoped out a future place to put the Kayak into the water).

 

That soon changed however when we passed by the road which leads to Maho beach.  This is where the road transitions into a 35 degree slope which just keeps going and going and going (for about a mile).   I should have remembered that this is where even our island car has a difficult time climbing.  Anyway, about half way up the hill, a car pulled over and offered us a ride (the driver stated that he had once walked up the hill and vowed never again).

 

We gladly took the ride up and got out at the top of the hill (at the smoothie stand) to walk back down to Coral Bay on the hill which beat us (actually it was the mosquitoes that beat us) before.  Even though we still did not stop for smoothies, it turns out that this was a relatively easy walk down and without the bugs, we could really enjoy the views.

All told I believe we walked about 5 ½ miles (over some very steep terrain) and rode about ½ miles.  It was a very enjoyable day and we really felt good about the exercise and dinner we earned at Castaways later that night!