Well g’day there everyone! I have been pretty slack with updates of late, but not really! I have been down in Trinidad and Tobago for a race, and the internet access down there was very hard to come by.
Ah We Boy, Emile Abraham, Tobago’s greatest cycling talent, annually puts together a team of riders to compete in the Tobago Cycling Classic. I was lucky enough to be selected to race for him this year. It was a great experience, and while the racing was ridiculously hard, it was an awesome experience to make my first trip to the Caribbean and hang with Rastafarians!

I have been having some difficulties putting the photos in order on this post, probably because there are so many, but i will just cover each one where it is.

We stayed in some vacation apartments, just a three minute walk from the airport, and about a 20 metre walk from the beach! Pretty bad ass for a bike race accommodation! The beach out the front of our place looked like this in the evening. It was crazy, the water temperature was basically the same in the water, as it was out of the water, so you could be in the water any time of day, which was just amazing.

We did our washing at the laundromat one day, and the machine Bruno used must have been used by some chick beforehand, and when his washing came back, it had some skimpy little underwear in it!

Our apartment block had some really great security, to ensure nobody stole our bikes or anything. There are two security guards there who share the 24 hour security of the place. This dude did the 7 am - 7 pm shift every day, and the other dude did the 7 pm - 7 am shift every night, and slept the whole time! They didn’t really talk much, but were kind enough to be in a photo…

There are a heap of cool little shanty-type shops on the side of the road, and this one just near where we stayed sold coconuts. The dude was so cool, and even demonstrated to us how he climbs a tree to pull the coconuts down. We has some fresh coconut juice, and played around with his machete too, seeing if we had the skill he did at chopping the coconuts up!

So as i said earlier, the race was ridiculously hard! Here is one of the hairpin turns on one of the seven or eight categorised climbs we did on the final stage! While it may not look too steep, it was! These hills were so steep, i was doing 3km/h up them, basically coming to a stand-still between each pedal. On the video of the race i was glad to see that even the leaders of the race needed to zig-zag up the climbs! The hardest thing was, the 7-8 climbs, all came within 80 km of each other; up, then down, then straight up again. The descents were just as hard as the ascents, as they were windy, mostly gravel, switch-backs all the way down!

The race promoter was kind enough to take all the racers out on a cruise in a glass bottom boat after the third stage. We went out to the reef snorkeling, and also to some shallow sand pool in the middle of the reef. This is what one of the many beaches looked like from the boat.

On the reef, there was some shallow pool thingy. It was awesome! There was music pumping from the boats, we were out in the water, about a mile from the land, and were able to stand up waist deep in the water, drink some beers, and just have some fun! It is pretty much tropical paradise.

After the reef trip on the boats, we were treated to a party at the apartments where we were staying. The Trinidad and Tobago Steelpan Band played for us, well, about a tenth of the real thing. They had about ten members here for us, while the band has near 100 members. Their drums are made from 44-gallon drums, and the sound these things make (all players are playing drums) is just incredible. I have never heard anything like it. Everyone gets up and dances around, and as i said, this sound is like nothing i have ever heard before. While it doesn’t do justice, check this out for a rough idea of what it is a bit like - seriously, check it out!

Here is a typical sunset from out in front of where our apartment was. Every evening heaps of people came to our apartments to take photos of the sunset, and i can see why!

Here is another sunset photo. I got heaps and heaps of pictures of the sunset, but this one is pretty crazy, as the sky is two different colours, side by side! Weird huh?!

Here is our crew for the racing. We had a great time. We were so lucky too, that we had the local boy Emile show us all the great things of Tobago, like this lookout!

We went to Pirate Bay, after a long, long walk down steps, and came out at this stunning beach. It was very remote, and looked like something from Pirates of the Caribbean! Cool photo!

Emile also took us to the waterfall in the rain forest. Luckily for me, Keally came down mid-way through the racing, so she got to see all this amazing stuff with me. There was a long walk up to the waterfall, but it was really worth it when we got to stand under the pelting down water at the top to cool and rinse off! There were about five waterfalls on top of each other, and this was one of the highest ones. How romantic of Keally and I…!

Just before we got to the top, Emile took this photo of us on the edge of the waterfall, and it wasn’t until checking out the photo that we realised how high up we were! Check out Morgan and the other people down below us in the background! We are pretty high up…

We went out to eat pizza on one of the last nights there, and this local dude cruised past on his decked out cruiser! Have a look at it! It has a DVD player pumping out music really loud, neon lights under the bottom of if. two battery packs to keep everything charged up, and a fire extinguisher to make it fit the image - well, that’s what he told us! It was actually really hard to ride!

So that is few photos from our trip. There were just too many to include all the good ones. I think i took 387 photos and videos from the time down there, so if anyone wants to see them, they need to come and have a look on my computer!
We had a great time down in Tobago, and will be sure to get back there soon! A huge thank you to Emile for giving us the local-knowledge tour of the island, and thanks to all the dudes we stayed down there with, helping make it such a great trip!
Below is another post which i just put up too, so check it out if you like.
I have one week left in the States, so possibly will get one more post out, of my time here this year. I head home on the weekend, so i am getting everything ready for the trip slowly - i am not really looking forward to it too much just yet!
Laters people, thanks for reading, and please leave a comment…!!!!
Here is a fact: Approximately 1 billion stamps are produced in Australia annually.