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Excerpted from St. John Off The Beaten
Track ©
2006 Gerald Singer
The Brown Bay Trail runs between the East End Road (Route
10) just east of Estate Zootenvaal, and the Johnny
Horn Trail.
The beach at Brown Bay is 0.8 mile from either end of the trail,
making a total distance of 1.6 miles.
If your destination is the beach at Brown Bay, the easier access
is from the trail entrance at East End. Starting from the
Coral Bay Moravian Church, go east about a mile on the East
End Road. You will pass Estate Zootenvaal and then cross
a small concrete bridge. Turn left just after the bridge
and park on the dirt road.
An animal watering trough and an old well remaining from subsistence
farming days can be found on the low flat ground on the west
side of the trail near the road. Twenty yards up the dirt track
you will come to a fork in the road. The left fork is a police
shooting range. The right fork is the beginning of the Brown
Bay Trail, which will take you from the south side of St. John,
up a hill, over the ridge and down to the north side of the
island. At the ridge you will have reached an altitude of 200
feet above sea level.
As you walk along the trail you will quite likely encounter
feral donkeys and small herds of goats that roam freely through
the bush. On the south side of the hill you will see pipe organ
cactus, century plants, maran bush, catch-and-keep and wild
tamarind, which are characteristic of this cactus scrub environment.
Among the larger trees found in the vicinity are tamarinds
and genips, which usually bear fruit in the summer months.
Be careful not to step on the cacti that lie low on the ground
and are known locally as suckers. The spines can be quite painful
and hard to dislodge if you get stuck.
There is a fine southerly view of Coral Bay just before the
trail switches back to the right for the first time. You can
look out over Coral Harbor, Princess Bay, Hurricane Hole and
Leduck Island.
Crossing over the top of the ridge,
you’ll begin your
descent into the Brown Bay Valley. The north side of St. John
typically gets more rain than the south side, resulting in
a thicker coverage of trees and a more tropical environment,
a phenomenon you will quickly notice as you cross from one
side of the mountain to the other.
As you descend into the valley, you will be treated to beautiful
views of the Sir Francis Drake Channel and the bordering British
Virgin Islands. At the bottom of the hill, take the short spur
trail to get to the beach at Brown Bay or continue on the same
trail that will intersect with the Johnny Horn Trail.
If you are beginning this walk from the Johnny Horn Trail,
proceed to the intersection of the Johnny Horn and Brown
Bay Trails. The Brown Bay Trail is to the left and goes downhill.
About 20 yards from the intersection is a scenic overlook.
On a clear day there is an excellent view to the east all
the way to the Baths at Virgin Gorda, including Fallen Jerusalem,
Round Rock, and Cooper and Salt Islands.
At the bottom of
the hill, the trail crosses a gut and continues east on flat
land. At the gut crossing, there are several genip trees
and a large tamarind tree. Donkeys and goats often congregate
around this area. The trail then passes alongside a salt pond
for about a quarter mile. A little past the salt pond is a
short spur trail to the left that leads to the beach at Brown
Bay. The Brown Bay Trail continues to East End Road, just east
of Estate Zootenvaal.
Brown Bay has some of the most extensive ruins on the island
of St. John. To explore them, proceed to the western end
of the beach and then make your way further along the shoreline
until you see the beginning of the ruins.
Here you will find the remains of an
estate house bearing an old concrete plaque inscribed with
the date 1872 and bearing the initials “G-N”.
Notice the exceptionally well-crafted stone and brickwork
that went into the construction of the old walls. You will
also find ruins from an even earlier time including a sugar
factory with its boiling room, cisterns once used for rum
distillation, an old copper boiling pot, two horsemills from
different periods, a storage building, an old well, an ox
pound and two graves, one being that of a child.
When French troops finally put down the slave rebellion of
1733, surviving slaves gathered above Brown Bay and shot
themselves dead rather than face capture. This occurred about
ten days after the mass suicide at Ram Head. In 1840, four
slaves from the Brown Bay plantation successfully escaped
across the channel to Tortola.
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