02 May 2024

Barbados

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My adventure on the wild side

Hunter Davies breaks the habit of a lifetime and swaps the gentle West Coast of Barbados for something just a bit more bracing

Barbados - The Crane Restaurant, Barbados

1 Crane Beach, Barbados 2 The Crane Restaurant, Barbados 3 A local cyclist, Barbados

WHEN THE SOCKS GOT out of control I knew it was time to move on. We were staying at Cobblers Cove in Barbados, where we have gone almost every January since 1986. For three days, other guests at the hotel were coming up and giving me pairs of socks.

One of them was the fragrant Judith Chalmers. She presented them over breakfast. A rather nice pair, in brown, BA’s best, for the first class passengers by the look of them. Now her TV travel show has ended, she might need all the free stuff she can get.

It was my own fault, boasting to everyone that I always keep the courtesy socks you get given on BA Club class, plus my wife’s. I wear them till they disintegrate.

We were going to move on anyway, about to do something we have never done before in all these years of visiting Barbados. Cobblers Cove is on the West Coast, the classy platinum coast, one of about ten stunning hotels along that stretch which are among the best in the Caribbean.

The West Coast also has the best beaches, best swimming, best restaurants, oh everything, really, which most people of taste and means would desire from a Caribbean holiday.

But this time, we thought we would also try The Crane on the South-East Coast. The oldest hotel in Barbados, it opened in 1887, but became rather run-down in recent years. It’s been hauled into what’s considered the height of early 21st Century hotel fashion by Canadian owner Paul Doyle and now called The Crane Resort and Residences.

These past five years, every hotel with the slightest pretensions has had to have a spa. Now it’s a Thai restaurant. I will never use either, but that is what hotel owners are convinced we all want. Personally, in the Caribbean, I want to eat fresh fish and have long beach walks and swims. I can get Thai food and massages in London. In Carlisle. Even in Cockermouth. So why go all that way for them?

Set in the coconut groves

Work is well underway to add the finishing touches to the Zen Restaurant, opening any time now, the first Japanese restaurant on the island also serving Thai food. The spa, set in the coconut groves, will follow along with tennis courts and a state-of-the-art fitness centre.

There will be 220 private residences when the project is complete, all available as time-share deals for life – at prices Mr Doyle says are less than hiring a West-Coast villa for one holiday. They don’t use the word time-share of course, too low-class, which The Crane certainly is not. They prefer ‘interval ownership’ or ‘private residence resort’.

It will still be run like a hotel, with rooms available from small suites to huge three-bedroom penthouse apartments, many with their own private pool. The rooms are indeed up to West Coast standards. If not more so and definitely bigger. Ours had a washing machine, dishwasher, ultra-modern kitchen – again, stuff I don’t want on hols, not as long as I have my dear wife, a kettle and a tea bag.

The dining areas and swimming pool are excellent, with the most amazing views. The Crane is on a little cliff, 100 steps up (though a lift is coming soon), looking down on one of the most spectacular beaches in Barbados. Four beaches really, two long and two small, which in all stretch for about a mile.

Terribly exhilarating

The waves are wavy, not like the West Coast. Oldies might find getting in and out a bit hairy but it’s terribly exhilarating. I met many guests who said they prefer swimming in real, live seas to the silky, soporific West Coast. The other advantage of staying at The Crane was that it gives a chance to explore the Barbados that West Coasters never see. Such as Codrington College.

It is one of the most handsome mansions in Barbados, built in 1743, but I thought it was closed to the public. I wandered along and found that though it housed a small seminary for Anglican priests, the building and grounds are open to all – and free.

I also visited St John’s Parish Church, another imposing East Coast building which dates to 1676. You forget, if you stick to the West Coast’s mostly post-1960 swish hotels and glitzy restaurants, just how historic Barbados is, with its stately-home plantation houses. The East Coast has few hotels, and very simple ones, notably the Atlantis, which is more than 100 years old, right in the middle of the wildest part of the coastline. We had Sunday lunch and the restaurant was full. We appeared to be the only tourists. So nice to be among locals. After all, I can meet Michael Winner at home.

I had picked green bananas, salt fish and fruit salad, pumpkin fritters, Bajan pepper pot and something called spouse. I wish I hadn’t, after I discovered it consisted of pig parts normal people don’t eat.

The East Coast is wild and unspoilt with Atlantic breakers crashing, white horses out for miles and the endless roar of nature. But oh-so dramatic and beautiful, especially around Bathsheba Bay. They call it the Scotland District as it’s in the parish of St Andrew. It is a bit like Scotland – with sun. No one should miss it.

So will I change a habit of a lifetime? Well, I think Cobblers Cove is still our favourite, but staying at The Crane was a worthwhile experience. All soft West Coasters should try the South and East, especially ones who wear socks…

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