Northern Martinique

During our easter holiday this year we visited some islands in the Lesser Antilles. The French Island of Martinique was one of them and naturally we visited this new WHS. We arrived at Fort-de-France, the islands main city, by ferry from Castries St Lucia, a ferry trip of 1 ½ hour. After a bus ride to the airport for picking up the rental car we were on our way to our next WHS.

The buffer zone of this site covers a major part of the northern part of the island, but the core zone is divided into two smaller areas. Our route took us through the southern WHS area which contains The Pitons du Carbet, but we opted for passing through the green and lush lower areas as it was already afternoon. Even though the drive is beautiful the main site for us would be the Mount Pelèe with its 1397 mas in the norther core zone. The mountain area is visible from a distance – if there’s any visibility. We were lucky.

We went for the parking on the southeastern side which is about 800 mas to figure out how to “attack” this mountain the following day. From the parking there is little to see. The visibility was good enough, but you only see the first bit of the climb. The better view was from a distance. Our survey did nothing for us other than we could see that the hike starts with a steep climb up …

I'm typically biased towards nature site but this one is really nice and worth a visit. An hour's drive from FdF at the most through beautiful scenery already (although the roads can be narrow yet in good condition) you arrive at the parking lot for Mount/Montagne Pelée. The lookout is nice too but the mountain is obviously what you came for - yes, ignore that ugly power station at the start of the hike /cough cough.

The hike is roughly 6-7km depending where you actually go. The goal is Le Chinois, should I be offended here? The peak doesn't really look like a "Chinaman" at all. You do not necessarily get to the top to enjoy this place. The start of the hike is steep and you may be wondering why the path is so tiny. The mist can make this also a very wet hike and the top is often covered with clouds as you can still make out in my picture, this was the best one I got before it was covered up again. This also meant that some of the hiking is frustrating because the view is not that great sometimes. Don't let it stop you from circling around this lovely and once deadly volcano.

The nature here is just outstanding and fresh. So green. There are other places that want to be inscribed such as Caravelle à Trinité but I stopped there and wasn't that impressed. There are many places on Martinique worth visiting …