As we couldn’t see Animal Flower Cave yesterday, we headed there this morning.

From the cliff tops above the cave, you can look out to North Point. This is the most northerly part of the island and is where the Atlsntic and Caribbean oceans meet.

At some parts of the year, you can see humpback whales here, but they had left a couple of weeks ago.

The cave was discovered in 1780 by two English explorers. The 27 steps going down to the cave were built in 1912 and are really steep.

The cave is made from erosion of the coral rock. It is 6ft above the high water mark but was formed at sea level. Barbados is riding at 1 inch every 1000 years.

The walls of the cave are full of interesting formations that have been coloured green and brown by oxidation of copper and iron.

The floor of the cave is estimated to be around 400,000 to 5000,000 years old.

There are several openings in the cave where you can look out to sea and get amazing views.

The guide told us they often fish from the openings, and in 2019, they caught a huge tiger shark and had to use a whole chicken as bait.

When the seas are rough, the water comes in the openings and can even go all the way up to the top of the steps. The guide showed us a large boulder that had been pushed to the back of the cave by the force of the waves.

The cave gets its name from the sea anemones found in the pools of the cave. When the anemone opens up, it looks like a tiny flower.

The floor of the cave was obviously very uneven and wet, and one poor lady fell over a couple of times.

One of the larger pools of the cave you could go swimming in. I didn’t have my bikini with me so I went in my underwear instead.

The water was crystal clear and actually warmer than I thought it would be. It was shallow in places but did go down to around 9ft. You could swim out to the ledge and look out.

After exploring the cave, we headed back out and did a little bit of shopping in the gift shop.

We also walked around the clifftop to take in the views.

From Animal Flower Cave, we decided to head to the south of the island and visit St Lawrence Gap. This is a 1.5km stretch of bars, shops, and restaurants and has some lovely beaches.

It was lunchtime, so we stopped at Mimosas for lunch.

The food was delicious, and the girls all had a cocktail (I was driving so stated on the juice).

Outside we took some photos on the chairs as the colours were really good.

We wandered around the shops and bought a few souvenirs, and then headed to the beach.

All of the sun loungers were full as most of them belonged to the big hotels along the beachfront.

So we found a bar and had a delicious banana colada (virgin for me).

One of the most common birds we see in Barbados is the blackbird. It squawks really loudly and has yellow eyes. I think it is sometimes called the brewers blackbird.

There are also a lot of chickens roaming the streets.

From St Lawrence Gap, we headed back home,making a short stop for some salad items, bread, and petrol.

In the evening, we stayed in and made a delicious salad. It was an early night for us all.