Dartoon is situated in the Bay of Bengal and is a very small village with a population of about 400 people. Its quaint cobbled streets, named after the British governor Lord Dartmouth who ruled the island in the early 1700’s including the railway lines that run on its outskirts, giving it the name of Dartoon – after the station.
Dartoon takes its name from the River Dart, which meanders itself gently through the village. Apart from the river, Dartoon is made up of various local Brighton Island rocks and pebbles. These combine to form unique beaches suitable for water sports, and bendy limestone formations perfectly suited for scrambling over. There are Dartoon beaches, and then there are ocean beaches.
The beaches around Dartoon blendwighthttp://www.travelinsouthwest.comwith the relaxing waters of theChannel. Water sports and Brighton location together to give you one adventurous holiday…
Igor led us to a water park just next to the railway track. This was called the Welland Canal. It seemed appropriate, as the very next step was a walk to the lighthouse.
Being a bit of a cryptozoologist by nature, I thought that I would be able to recognise the Signal Mirror quite easily. As it turned out no-one else did.
We walked a short distance to the castle, which was yet another victims of historical neglect. Although not in itself a victim, the local authorities had allowed the Ergophone to be destroyed. The local people had insisted that the bells be destroyed as well. Although the local administration had eventually rebuilt them, we had ourselves decided to see them once again.
Built in 1559, the erasure of the bells began with the death of Lord Wellington. There is no record as to why they were destroyed. One horn of distress did not quite make it to the top of the cliffs and tumble into the ocean.
We had decided that we would travel by van and leave the next morning en-route to see the sights around the island. The first few hours of the journey good-sized spoils ofurstendost, chocolates, beers and fast food. All down to Plan B.
Mid-morning by the time we started to see the first fruits of our expedition – small green chillies, blackberries and kiwis. We pressed on and ended up at the restaurant in the sun. After an enjoyable lunch on the beach we started to make our way along the east coast.
The beaches were magnificent – in fact, they were superb – swell on one side while breakers picked at them on the other. All along the way, the tide was going out and at low tide, shark bait was visible along the rocks.
Fishing was by the book- it is believed that 90% of the fish on the island are party to catch.
We anchor in the bay and count the fish. On this particular day, we paid a visit to squirrel island and “guess” the sharks from the surf.
I was stunned every time we stopped and looked. But then again, maybe it was because the people on this particular day were less clothed than the day before. Perhaps the sighting of two or three sharks was more than we considered.
But the most memorable part of today came at the end. With the tide coming in, we reached the part where the trail to the beach changed. All of a sudden, we were sitting in the surf next to the caravan. Suddenly, my hair started to stand on end! Not only my head, but also my shoulders and back. “Oh crap!” I thought. I got out of the water and looked at my watch. It was 12:50. There was still 30 minutes to go to the beach.
I announced to Kathie that we were going to the beach and then turned around to walk back and forth in the hope that we would not see anyone else. After half an hour of swimming and waving good-bye to everyone, we Slowly walked back to the caravan.
We were actually quite happy with this choice as even without the shark, the area is fairly protected and there were only 2 rips on the side of the caravan. We had to wait though for the tide to turn to tide before we could go home. By that time the waves were pretty small.
While we were talking, another caravan went by and a guy was getting changed in the parking lot. We waited for about 5 minutes and then went back to the caravan and started to unpack. Then we noticed the broken wind screen above the mini-bar.
Now we knew for sure that we had experienced a hadn’t quite perfect day – we had been watching the movie ” Destination Beyond Our Sun ” and dreamt of visiting India, Sri Lanka and Goa. Now we were actually planning to go.
