The Barn and Manati Bay

March 31, 2025

We finished all the original postbox walks on the island! 

The last two postboxes we did were The Barn and Manati Bay. 

First we did The Barn on March 9th as our penultimate hike. This is a well known walk on the island, starting at the bottom of Flagstaff (another shorter hike) and extending out along a ridge towards the sea. It has a reputation for being one of the more challenging ones, however once you begin on the path it is a nice walk.

We began walking up a long 4x4 track that went through cow fields and wind turbines, which lead to the start of the walk. The walk began by jumping over a fence and walking down a desert landscape and towards a ridge. This part was a bit daunting as you are very aware of the height you are at, but the path is wide and stable (for the most part). We descended onto the ridge down a sandy track and then climbed along the side of the hill before finally climbing up to the top of the Barn, with an endless view out to the sea where we collected the postbox stamp.

The way back seemed less challenging as we now knew where we were going, and it is also somehow flatter on the way back.? As we were walking back at one point we turned around and saw the plane landing on the island too which was fun to see. 

Manati Bay

We did our final hike on March 15 which was Manati Bay. This walk had been one which I was not very excited about doing because I have heard about the steepness of the trail both up and down, and I had seen it from the sea which does not make it look encouraging. 

We began this walk in Casons parking lot, where we all pilled into Tom's pick up truck and he drove us to the start of the walk. As we began our way down, I am very glad we had a guide because the “path” begins in a sheep field with little signs of where one should go other than sheep tracks which could go anywhere. 

I was actually pleasantly surprised by this hike, I think because the weather was quite overcast and a bit drizzly it made the walking up and down the hill better than if there was sun which would have made it a lot more difficult as the path is exposed most of the time. 

After wandering through the sheep field, we found ourselves at the beginning of a scrubby wooded area where the path went straight down the side of the mountain. We edged our way down and made it to the bottom where we collected the final stamp (woo!). Then part of the group continued down further to the beach where there were rock pools, while the other half of the group stayed on the upper platform and recuperated before the journey back up the hill. 

The way back was a slow treck up the mountain, but this was ok as it began to rain at one point which helped to cool us off as we made our way to the car.