"The Road That Couldn't Be Built." | |
Length | 14 kilometres (8.7 mi) |
---|---|
Location | Saba, Netherlands |
From | Well's Bay/ Fort Bay |
Major junctions | branch to Fort Bay The Bottom to St. Johns Windwardside Hiking Trail to Mount Scenery Zion's Hill to sulfur mine Juancho E. Yrausquin Airport |
To | Cove Bay |
Construction | |
Construction start | 1938 |
Inauguration | 1943 |
The Road is the unofficial name for the cement road that connects the villages of Saba, Netherlands, a Caribbean island. It is nicknamed as "The Road That Couldn't Be Built." [1] It is the primary road on the island, spanning 8.7 miles (14 km). [1] It was constructed by local Sabans between 1938 and 1963, without the use of machines. [2]
For most of its history Saba had no road, only footpaths and stone steps. Experts had expressed the opinion that it was impossible to build a cement road on the island. [1] In the 1930s, a self-educated local engineer, Josephus Lambert "Lambee" Hassell (1906-1983)., [3] dedicated himself to the idea of creating a road. [4] [5]
Phase 1: In 1938, cementing of the road's first section began: from Fort Bay and The Bottom. [2] [4] [5] Until then, this path had been a stone path was made of 200 uneven stone steps. [2] Construction was carried out by local Sabans under the leadership of Erroll Hassell. [2] [3] In 1943, this first section of the road was completed and inaugurated. [2] [6] It was 0.7 miles (1.15 m) long and 13 ft (4 m) wide, and covered an elevation change, or slope, of 653 ft (5 m). [2]
Phase 2: By 1951, the road was extended to St. John's and then to Windwardside. [4] [2] This involved the removal of stone steps [2] and cementation of the paths.
Phase 3: In 1958, The Road was completed. Under the direction of Lambee Hassell, [2] the road had been extended all the way to Hell's Gate, the village futhest from Fort Bay. In 1963, the road was extended to Saba's new airport at Flat Point. [4]
In 1963, The Road covered 6.5 miles (10 km) from Fort Bay to the airport in Flat Point. [4] Since then, branches have been added to the road, including branches to Well's Bay, to the Mount Scenery hiking trail, to the Sulphur Mine trail, and to Cove Bay. The road now covers about 8.7 miles (14 km). [1]
There are no official documents about the exact route of The Road. After matching several sources, The Road is believed to go from Well's Bay Beach to Cove Bay Beach [7] with a branch to Fort Bay after The Bottom, in the direction of Well's Bay. [7] The Road connects the island with the airport at Flat Point as well. [7]
The South West Coast Path is England's longest waymarked long-distance footpath and a National Trail. It stretches for 630 miles (1,014 km), running from Minehead in Somerset, along the coasts of Devon and Cornwall, to Poole Harbour in Dorset. Because it rises and falls with every river mouth, it is also one of the more challenging trails. The total height climbed has been calculated to be 114,931 ft (35,031 m), almost four times the height of Mount Everest. It has been voted 'Britain's Best Walking route' twice in a row by readers of The Ramblers' Walk magazine, and regularly features in lists of the world's best walks.
Saba is a Caribbean island and the smallest special municipality of the Netherlands. It consists largely of the active volcano Mount Scenery, which at 887 metres (2,910 ft) is the highest point of the entire Kingdom of the Netherlands. The island lies in the northern Leeward Islands portion of the West Indies, southeast of the Virgin Islands. Together with Bonaire and Sint Eustatius it forms the BES islands, also known as the Caribbean Netherlands.
The Bottom is the capital and largest town of the island of Saba, the Caribbean Netherlands. It is the first stop on the way from Saba's Port in Fort Bay towards the rest of the island. In 2001, it had 462 inhabitants of the total 1,349 islanders. It is the administrative center of Saba.
Windwardside is the second largest town on the island of Saba, aptly named for being on the windward side of the island.
Ladder Bay is an anchorage on the leeward side of the Caribbean island of Saba. The bay sits on the west side of the island, directly under a set of 800 steps hand carved into the rocks locally known as "The Ladder". Until the construction of Saba's first pier in the 1970s, Ladder Bay was a primary point of entry for supplies to the island. An abandoned customs house sits on the lip of a cliff overlooking the bay.
Princess Juliana International Airport is the main airport on the Caribbean island of Saint Martin. The airport is located on the Dutch side of the island, in the country of Sint Maarten, close to the shore of Simpson Bay Lagoon. In 2015, the airport handled 1,829,543 passengers and around 60,000 aircraft movements. The airport serves as a hub for Winair and is the major gateway for the smaller Leeward Islands, including Anguilla, Saba, Saint Barthélemy and Sint Eustatius. It is named after Queen Juliana of the Netherlands, who landed there while she was heir presumptive in 1944, the year after the airport opened. The airport has very low-altitude flyover landing approaches because one end of its runway is extremely close to the shore and Maho Beach. While Princess Juliana International is the primary aviation gateway to the island, there is also a smaller public-use airport on the French side, in the French Collectivity of Saint Martin, called Grand Case-Espérance Airport.
St. Johns is a settlement in Saba, the Caribbean Netherlands. It is located between The Bottom and Windwardside. It is the smallest of Saba's four villages, with a population of 186. The village was the birthplace of Cornelia Jones, the first woman to hold public office in the Windward Islands. It is the current location of Saba's primary and secondary schools. It is also one of the island's seismic monitoring sites.
Juancho E. Yrausquin Airport is an airport on the Dutch Caribbean island of Saba. Its runway is widely acknowledged as the shortest commercial runway in the world, with a length of 400 m (1,312 ft).
Mount Scenery is a dormant volcano in the Caribbean Netherlands. Its lava dome forms the summit of the Saba island stratovolcano. At an elevation of 887 m (2,910 ft), it is the highest point in both the Kingdom of the Netherlands, and, since the dissolution of the Netherlands Antilles on 10 October 2010, the highest point in the Netherlands proper.
Zion's Hill, also known by its former name Hell's Gate, is a town on the Dutch Caribbean island of Saba. Locally, it is divided into Upper Hell's Gate and Lower Hell's Gate.
The Oyster Bay Branch is a rail line and service owned and operated by the Long Island Rail Road in the U.S. state of New York. The branch splits from the Main Line just east of Mineola station, and runs north and east to Oyster Bay. The branch is electrified between East Williston and Mineola. The branch opened in segments between 1865 and 1889.
Saba's culture bears the influence of its early settlers, among them the English, Scottish, Africans, and Dutch. Because Saba measures only five square miles and has a treacherous coastline, its population has always been small. Today its population numbers about 1,500 people, with approximately 250 being expatriates. Many of the non-Sabans teach at or attend the Saba University School of Medicine.
The Saba National Marine Park encompasses the waters and sea bed encircling the Caribbean island of Saba, Caribbean Netherlands, from the high water mark to 200 feet (61 m) deep. In total, the marine park covers approximately 5 square miles (13 km2). At the time of its creation in 1987, the government passed the Marine Environment Ordinance to protect the coral reefs and other marine life within the park. The Saba Conservation Foundation manages the Saba National Marine Park, as well as the island's hyperbaric facility, and natural sites on land.
Fort Bay is the official and only port on the island of Saba, in the Caribbean Netherlands. It is located on the south side of the island, about 1 mile (1.6 km) by road from The Bottom. The port is very important for the island as most of its supplies arrive here by boat.
Upper Newport Bay State Marine Conservation Area (SMCA) is a marine protected area in Newport Bay in Orange County and the South Coast region of Southern California. It extends inland/northeast from the Pacific Coast Highway crossing of the bay, within the city of Newport Beach.
Mahimangad Fort, in Maan lies within the village limits of Mahimangad village about five and a half miles west of Dahivadi.
The Flat Point Tide Pools are located on the coast of Saba, in the Dutch Caribbean. They are located on the Flat Point peninsula Lower Hell's Gate. These tide pools feature large lava rock formations filled with colorful saltwater pools. The site was formed during volcanic activity about 5,000 years ago. A large lava flow went down the northeast side of the island into the ocean, forming the Flat Point peninsula as it cooled. Today the Flat Point Tide Pools are home to diverse marine life, and are a popular hiking location. The site is accessible via the Flat Point Trail below Saba's airport.
Flat Point is an area on the northeastern coast of Saba, an island in the Dutch Caribbean. It is located in the lower part of the Hell's Gate village, known as Lower Hell's Gate. Flat Point is the location of Juancho E. Yrausquin Airport, the Tide Pools, ruins of a 17th-18th century sugar and indigo plantation, and Cove Bay.
Cove Bay is a is coastal bay on the island of Saba in the Dutch Caribbean. It is located on the southeastern coast of the Flat Point peninsula, below the Juancho E. Yrausquin Airport and the Flat Point Tide Pools.
Well's Bay is a coastal bay on the island of Saba in the Dutch Caribbean. It is located on the northwestern coast of the island. The bay is one of a few places for swimming on Saba. Sometimes Well's Bay has a small beach, known locally as the “wandering beach” due to the black sand that appears and disappears seasonally and sporadically.