Nathan's Insights

Thursday 02 January 2025
Highlights: The St Kitts coastline, The rustic and enjoyable St Kitts Railway, The singing of The Nashville Tenors

The last country to visit on this World Trip 2024-25 was today’s visit to St Kitts. Whenever a trip gets close to the end I start recalling everything I’ve done and want to ensure the few days remaining bring create more memories.

I booked the Caribbean Scenic Rail and Sail tour today scheduled for 4.5 hours. Despite the title of the tour ‘The Sail’ was the first component. We boarded our catamaran close to the Explorer of the Seas and we even went close to our cruise ship before heading out to the open sea. It was a little rough at first but that is part of the adventure.

I ensure that today I got a viewing spot at the front of the catamaran for the first time. I enjoyed watching the sail deployed on the catamaran as a lot of the sailing was using wind power which was nice and made for a more pleasant experience than engine-only cruising. 

We enjoyed some rum and music as a crew member explained the history of St Kitts and Nevis with a focus on the English and French struggle for control and what happened to the original inhabitants when Europeans arrived.

After a few hours, we landed on shore and got a bus to the St. Kitts Scenic Railway. The train has five carriages which are all double deckers with the top deck open air with a roof whereas the bottom deck is fully enclosed. 

The track is 29 kilometres long. The original track was laid from 1912 to 1926, to deliver sugar cane from the plantations to the new centralised sugar mill in Basseterre.

We caught the train running to Basseterre stopping near the international airport. It was a lovely experience with drinks provided on board. You could touch a lot of the greenery from my seat on the top deck. The rail journey did a great job of highlighting the beauty of this island.

Reluctantly I reboarded the Explorer of the Seas for the last time. The next two days will be seas days so the next time I’m off the ship will be the end of the cruise.

The highlight on board the ship was the performance of The Nashville Tenors in the Theatre. While this was mostly country music and songs I wasn’t aware of the second last song Hallelujah.

A brilliant song that the Tenors sang with so much emotion.