This is the final post on Bermuda, then we’ll head back to Boston. If you’re wondering about why posts have been so infrequent, it’s because I have an algebra final coming up and have been working hard for that. In two weeks there should be more frequent posts. Also, this one will be mostly pictures, just because they mostly speak for themselves.

The massive cruise ship that was taking up the dock.

This is where the ferries usually leave.

And the entrance.

Hahahahahahaha.

The ferry, looking very crowded.

The inside was very luxurious.

The outdoor seating on the second deck was less comfortable.

A view of St. George’s.

An area close to town.

That weird sunken ship seen previously in Part 1.

A buoy sneaks into the picture.

The boat has to go through a tiny cut to get out of St. George.

Fort St. Catherine.

Somewhere…

Somewhere else…

Another fort. I don’t know the name of this one.

A big cruise ship.

The bathroom was actually kinda nice! That’s a first.

The outside.

Another view of the inside.

This one doesn’t have the great pun…

The ferry at Dockyard.

Sorry there’s not much written content on the ferry, it’s just that there’s not much to talk about that’s not already explained in the pictures.

In 1908, motor cars were actually banned in Bermuda. People needed a way to get around, because the horse-drawn carriages were way too slow and potentially dangerous. There had been proposals for a railway since 1899, and finally the building started in 1924 for one from Somerset to St. George’s via Hamilton. Progress was extremely slow, though, mostly because landowners didn’t want to sell their property for the railway. This meant that much of the track was laid on bridges, and even then there were still a number of “privilege halts” as compensation for building on people’s land.

By 1930, only three miles of track had been laid, but the rest of the single-track line (there was a number of passing loops, though) was ready, and complete in late 1931. It was the most expensive railway per mile in the world at the time. The railway ended up being very useful during World War II – 1945 saw the highest amount of ridership in any year (1.5 million people), but even then the operator didn’t make a profit.

In 1946, motor cars came back, which was one of the factors of the demise of the railway. The bus system was also created in this year. And when consulting engineers from New York surveyed the railway system, it was found that it was in very poor condition. To get it up to snuff would cost $850,000 (nearly $11 million in today’s money). This was much too expensive, especially since the operator never made a penny, and thus, the last train ran on May 1, 1948.

A train in Hamilton. Image Source

The railway has since been converted to a trail, and we did the section from Somerset Bridge to Barnes Corner. Once again, the pictures pretty much speak for themselves.

I’m not a nature photographer by any means, but this crow we saw was just dying to get its picture taken.

The remains of the old Somerset Bridge.

The view from the current Somerset Bridge.

A very leafy area.

Somerset Bridge again.

A beautiful cutting.

The former White Hill station building.

This is the little-known Bench Station. It’s still in remarkably good condition.

Some sort of army base? If the signs are to judge, it seems we’ll never find out.

Another rocky cutting.

A huge farm.

And again.

Another cutting.

You can’t really tell how close to the ground these telephone wires were.

Nice view.

An old buttery, which was used to store food.

Another view.

A leafy area.

And another.

Another.

People wrote messages on this plant, interestingly.

That top one is both disturbing and grammatically incorrect.

The former Evans Bay Station.

Yet another cutting.

Another little-known station, Bench Station, can be seen on the right.

A beautiful view.

The remains of Franks Bay Trestle.

And again, from a different angle.

These signs mark the trailheads. This is in St. George’s.

The former St. George’s Station, now a beauty salon.

The former Somerset Terminal, now a bus station (this was taken from the bus).

Even if you’re not interested in railways (although if you’re not, you should probably find another blog), the Bermuda Railway Trail still makes for a nice walk. It lets you see the part of Bermuda that’s not along the main roads – the quiet and beautiful suburban and rural areas. But you should probably do it in stages; the whole thing is over 20 miles!

So, this concludes the trip to Bermuda. A Boston-related post will come out at some point, but again, I’ll be posting infrequently until the algebra final’s done. See you next time.

I’m taking way too long with these posts. I do apologize for that. I’ll be splitting what would’ve been part 2 into 2 parts, making a total of three. But enough about that…
Having just gotten off of the Sea Express at the Dockyard, we needed to take the bus down to Somerset to walk the Railway Trail (the Express and the Trail will be talked about in Part 3). We didn’t have any worries about schedules, as the two buses that go to the Dockyard, the 7 and the 8, run every half hour coordinated. The stop we waited at was just a simple bench outside of the amazing Bermuda Maritime Museum.

Stop! Bus! I always love that.

A 7 came along, but the driver said it was out of service. Thus, we never actually took the 7, but I know the route and took a few pictures of its buses on the trip. The 7 follows the 8 all the way down to Barnes Corner, then turns onto South Road (the 8 stays on Middle Road). It’s much more scenic than the 8, with great ocean views, and it also serves the many beaches on this side of the island. The beaches are so popular in fact, that there is also an every 15 minute service from Hamilton to them, ending at Barnes Corner. The 7 soon joins back up with the 8, but whereas the 8 takes a more suburban approach into Hamilton, the 7 joins up with the 1, going by the Botanical Gardens and the Hospital. Here are the pictures I took of the 7:

The 7 that was “out of service.” That clearly says Hamilton on the front!

Oh, my mistake, there were two 7’s that were out of service.

The 7 in a rural area.

Another 7, in a different rural area.

Luckily an 8 came along soon, and it was indeed going to Hamilton. Well, it was actually designated as an 8c, which makes absolutely no sense as the 8c supposedly goes from Hamilton to some place called Cedar Hill. It’s not supposed to go anywhere near Dockyard, to my understanding. But whatever, it was a bus towards Hamilton and that’s what matters.

Rounding the corner.

And approaching the stop.

It was a 2001 Berkhof, almost identical to the one on the 11 from the airport. I did get a better interior picture here, though.

The bus ended up getting pretty crowded, but it was empty here at the first stop.

This sticker on the bus appears to be a bit outdated…

The bus was fairly crowded as we turned onto Camber Road, then “Clock Tower Parade.” There was an actual shelter and a fair few people waiting at the next stop, near the harbor. We then went onto Pander Road, which was a bridge over an industrial area, that became Cockburn Road.

There was an absolutely massive cruise ship docked here.

The view from Pander Road

There was a lot of island-hopping in the next stretch, none of which were particularly of note, but the views from the bridges between them were nice. The best one was Watford Bridge, a fairly long one between tiny Watford Island and the comparatively much larger Somerset Island. Here are various views from the ride that may not be in chronological order:

We soon turned into the Somerset Terminal. This was the former terminus of the Bermuda Railway (more in Part 3), and is currently a place where some buses short-turn. We proceeded back to Somerset Road, and soon made a left turn onto…Somerset Road. There were some businesses here in Somerset Village, but it’s a mostly suburban town. There were houses for a while, with the occasional massive park. Somerset Road eventually became Middle Road, and we soon came to Somerset Bridge.

We actually got off here, as we had done the Railway Trail section from Somerset Terminal to this point already. Somerset Bridge is noteworthy in apparently being the smallest drawbridge in the world. All the guidebooks and tourist guides say this is a “claim,” though, so who knows if it’s true. One thing’s for sure, it’s really tiny.

Seems kinda useless, frankly.

So we walked the Railway Trail all the way to Barnes Corner. From there, we had to get a bus back to Hamilton, and it ended up being another 8. The bus was one ordered in 2009, which apparently have some…problems. A local Bermudian called the order a “disaster” – drivers apparently refuse to drive these buses. I mean, it didn’t seem that bad. The poles littered with ads were kind of annoying, but they have to make revenue somehow.

We waited here for a bit. It was very comfortable. Very. Comfortable.

Really. Really. Comfortable.

Okay, it was awful. We were pretty happy when the bus came.

The bus was really crowded, but it looked like it had a back door! That would be useful, as it can be annoying when people want to get off on a crowded bus; usually people have to get out to allow the exiting person to pass. Seems like the second door would alleviate these issues.

Wait, the driver wasn’t using it at all. Could it have been broken? No, there was distinctly a time when the driver accidentally opened them, then closed them again. So basically, these doors are a complete waste of space. There could be four, or even six seats in its place! It’s apparently meant for people in wheelchairs, which is certainly good, but not when there’s a separate service on the island for them! And if you’re stuck with the doors, why not use them and make things easier for everyone? *sigh*

Okay, the stop request buttons are pretty cool.

A view of the inside.

A bad picture of the back doors.

Middle Road was, like most of the island, a mixture of suburban and rural environments. It was next to the water for a while, but ultimately went inland. Eventually we merged with the 7 again, but broke off soon after, turning onto Stowe Hill. This portion south of Hamilton is unique to the 8, and was very interesting. The neighborhood was made up of narrow one-way streets that was even more fun on a bus.

But we soon merged with the 7 and the 1 again, and headed down Crow Lane – Bermuda’s only four-lane street. This became Front Street, which was right next to Hamilton Harbor. Both cruise ships and cargo ships could be seen from here. Soon we turned, heading through downtown Hamilton. Buses take a strange route getting to the terminal, making a lot of sharp turns, and there were a lot of red lights to contend with. But, we finally got to the Hamilton Bus Terminal. Here are the pictures I took there:

These monitors are supposed to show…something.

The one picture I got of the new 2014 buses. I never got to take a ride in one.

I find it interesting that there are shelters in an already sheltered area, but I guess they’re for the open bit in the back.

Looking the other way.

The office there was unmanned. The upstairs portion is blocked off. But there are vending machines!

My family has been going to Bermuda every year for the past 12 years. The fact that such a tropical setting exists just a two hour flight away from Boston is very enticing. We didn’t go last year, instead opting for Orlando, so I was more than excited to get back to our old stomping ground. Now, I’m more than aware that this is the longest post title in the blog’s history, but we took a lot of buses, and I want to get this done in two parts (hopefully). Okay? Okay.

For such a small island (21 square miles), Bermuda’s system of eleven bus routes is surprisingly efficient. That said, four are considered useless to the average tourist (and pretty useless in general – the 5, for example, is about 1.25 miles long, with only about a thousand feet not shared with another route), causing their schedules to be omitted from the “Visitor’s Guide” paper maps.

All of the routes except one originate at the Hamilton Bus Terminal (more on that in Part 2). For eleven years, we thought this was the only place you could get tickets, but it turns out you can also obtain them from local post offices. The ticketing system is anything but simple. The island is split into 14 zones, each of which is two miles long. When buying tickets, you have the option between 3 Zone and 14 Zone tickets. 3 Zone tickets allow you to travel three zones, obviously, while 14 Zone tickets allow you to take a bus as far as you want.

If you’re paying cash, it’ll do a number on your wallet. Adult fares are $3 for 3 zones and $4.50 for 14 zones, while children under 16 get a flat fare of $2.50. You can also get tokens, which soften the blow slightly by dropping the rates by $0.50. They say that passes are cheapest way to get around, but with a 7 day one costing $56.00, you would have to ride more than three zones 13 times for it to pay off.

We find that it’s much easier to buy books of paper tickets. For some reason they don’t mention these in the Visitor’s Guide – you can get a book of 15 3 zone tickets for $20 (so $1.33 per ticket – two 3 zone tickets equals one 14 zone ticket), and 15 14 zone tickets for $30 ($2 per ticket). Books of student tickets, which apply for all zones, only cost $7.50 – $0.50 per ticket! Something the Visitor’s Guide also doesn’t mention is transfers: if you’re changing over to another route, you can ask the driver for one and get on the next bus for free.

That’s not to say they make sense, but they’re quite useful.

Okay, you know a ticket system is overly complicated when it takes three paragraphs to explain it. Luckily, we had some left over from the last time we had come to the island, so we could take the bus from the airport to where we were staying in St. George (about a 10 minute ride). After a relatively short wait, an 11 came along.

Most of the 11’s route is shared with the 10, except for a short section near Hamilton. It also runs more often than the 10 (more in a second), and its individual portion is more interesting (it goes on the cool-sounding Blackwatch Pass, which cuts right through a rock gorge). On Mondays-Saturdays, it runs every 15 minutes, except on the .15 when a 10 runs in its place, until 11:45. On Sundays it drops down to every hour, ending at 10:45. However, the Sunday schedule is pretty ingenious: each of the four Hamilton – St. George buses runs every hour, but it’s coordinated so it’s actually every 15 minutes! Of course, the routes split eventually, but if you have to ride from end to end it’s great.

The first thing you notice is the striking pink color each bus is painted. It was apparently inspired by a postcard of a house in Bermuda, of all things. You can always tell what year the bus was imported in by looking at the license plate: if it was ordered before the millennium, the license plate shows the year, then the number. 9804, for example, would be the fourth bus ordered in 1998. If it was ordered in the 2000s, the license plate goes 2K+Year+Number. So 2K705 would be the fifth bus ordered in 2007, for example.

I can’t tell what year the bus we rode was ordered in, since the license plate is covered by a bush in the picture I took of it. However, it’s a Berkhof bus (I have a book about the bus system, so I know these things), so it must have been fairly old. I’m going to save the description of the ride from the airport for later, since every other St. George to Hamilton bus does it. But here are the pictures I took during the 11 ride, as well as all of the 11’s I saw. It’s a lot of pictures.

The bus at the airport.

The interior, looking towards the front. As you can see, it was fairly crowded.

On the older buses, there’s a really satisfying “ding” noise when someone requests a stop.

A bus in St. George.

And another.

And another.

And another.

Sensing a pattern here?

This is actually near the Grotto Bay hotel, further away from St. George.

And again.

Back in St. George.

Near Grotto Bay again.

St George.

And again.

And again.

Once more.

Surprisingly, we never took the 11 from St. George to Hamilton. We did end up taking a 10 back from Hamilton, though. We had just gotten off of an 8 (more about that in Part 2), and the crowd to get onto the 10 was huge. The driver insisted on “ladies first,” which although he had good manners (most people in Bermuda do – you can always tell the locals apart from the tourists because they always say hello to you), it complicated things a bit. Women in the crowd had to push and shove their way to the doors, including my mother.

The crowd at the Hamilton Bus Terminal (more about the terminal in Part 2).

As for the men, we had to stand, of course. The bus was so crowded that the driver had to leave people behind. “I can’t drive if people are past the white line,” he said. “The bus isn’t supposed to be this crowded.” So why were so many people riding? I have no idea.

This wasn’t the 10 that we took, but it was just hanging out at the terminal.

We navigated our way up Cedar Ave, hitting red lights and contending with city traffic (however, Hamilton is one of the world’s smallest capital cities, with only 1800 people living in it). Cedar Ave became Marsh Folly Road, and from there it got rural pretty quickly. We went by a small sports complex, the 11 route breaking off at Blackwatch Pass, and then houses came up.

Marsh Folly Road became Palmetto Road, and it got rural once again. According to my mother we went by the central bus depot along here, but she had a comfortable seat and could pay attention to the views, whereas I was just trying to hold on.

The bus we were on was a Goppel, which are newer and more modern then the Berkhofs. This one was from 2007. This bus, and most Bermuda buses for that matter, had a pole on the front. This is used for…deflecting palm trees. Yeah, Bermuda’s roads are kind of narrow. The overall layout of the seats are about the same as the Berkhofs, but they’re more cushioned and therefore comfortable in the Goppels. Unfortunately, instead of the cool stop request bell that plays in the Berkhofs, the Goppels just have a robotic buzz. There is a convenient clock next to the stop request sign, though.

The driver seems to be looking at me funny…

I also noticed that the buses have paper signs up front saying who’s driving. Some of the drivers even make logos for themselves, like the one on this particular bus. It certainly beats “This bus is driven by operator 60337,” like you get here. None of Bermuda’s buses have stop announcements, though.

I love that!

Anyway, Palmetto Road soon merged with North Shore Road and we rejoined the 11 route. Both buses run on North Shore Road from here on out. It was all houses, some close and some far apart. We were also right next to the ocean, but I don’t remember any particularly good views on this stretch.

Never look directly at the sun – it makes for a pretty bad picture, like this one.

Soon some restaurants came up. We were in Flatt’s Village, and this was where we were getting off to have dinner. After a great outdoor meal at Rustico, an Italian restaurant, we went back to wait for the bus. Another 10 came along soon, and it was mercifully less crowded. North Shore Road curved around before we went past the Bermuda Aquarium, Museum, and Zoo (a fantastic experience, particularly the zoo where peacocks roam free).

After Flatt’s, it went back to being mixtures of suburban and rural. We stayed fairly close to the ocean the whole time, but there weren’t too many views. There was a rotary, and we merged with the 1 and the 3 buses, heading onto Blue Hole Hill. This soon became The Causeway, a huge isthmus that goes to St. George’s Island. The views here are gorgeous, as you would expect.

The view from the Causeway looks very serene in the sunset.

We then went around a rotary onto Cahow Way, which leads to the airport. We went through the arrivals area, then looped around to the official stop. I’m not sure why buses don’t stop directly at the terminals, but…that’s how it is, I suppose. We went back to the rotary on Cahow Way, and continued straight onto Kindley Field Road. This throughway runs along the perimeter of the airport. But why is there a bus shelter – a shelter – along this stretch? There’s nothing! It’s just a big barbed wire fence! There was also a useless shelter – yes, a shelter – on the rotary from the Causeway.

Seriously, why would anyone ever use that shelter?

There was another rotary at the end of Kindley Field Road, but instead of going onto Mullet Bay Road toward St. George, we first made a stop outside of an ice cream shop. Yes, there’s a random ice cream shop here in the middle of nowhere. But the weirdest part is that this stop is really popular! This stop can empty out anywhere from a quarter to half the passengers on the bus!

The view from the Mullet Bay Road bridge.

We then looped back around to Mullet Bay Road and crossed over a bridge, now joined by the 6 bus from St. David’s. The very twisty road offered great views of St. George’s harbor.

The view of the harbor.

Mullet Bay Road soon became York Street, and we were in downtown St. George. Unlike Hamilton, which was a planned city and has a grid layout for its streets, St. George was a much older town (the oldest in the western hemisphere, in fact – much of the 17th century architecture still exists today) and developed organically. This means a lot of winding, narrow alleys, not unlike the layout of downtown Boston. As such, the buses are limited to the wider York Street, but it’s pretty much the “main drag” of the town. The buses terminate a ways past St. George to get to the depot, but almost everyone always gets off at the main stop downtown. It’s not much, but a convenient staircase takes people down to the pedestrian-only touristy area.

The bus station.

The 10 – a 2008 Goppel – in St. George.

A convenient luggage rack inside the bus.

The inside of the bus.

An artsy-looking picture of the stop request button.

The 10 at the airport.

Once a year, there is an agricultural fair (or “Ag Fair” to the locals) at the Botanical Gardens near Hamilton. The mix of farm animals, children’s projects from all the schools on the island, and of course, prize-winning fruits and vegetables make for a great time. To get there from St. George, you have to take the 1.

When you glance at the paper map, the 1’s schedule looks pretty awful: every hour, with service ending at the abominable time of 4 PM. When you look below the schedule, though, bold print tells you that the bus also leaves for Grotto Bay at .45 past the hour, ending at 5:45. Half hour service isn’t that bad, but 5:45? How are people along the route supposed to go out and have fun? And why would they terminate half the buses at Grotto Bay, in the middle of nowhere? Those buses are always empty but the St. George-bound ones are always packed! But it gets worse…

Checking my schedule, the bus was scheduled to leave the St. George Bus Depot at 1:52, so it would probably arrive at the central station at about 2:00 (it’s supposed to take five minutes, but the buses are always late). Soon it was 2:10, and our bus hadn’t come. In fact, no buses had come in either direction. Well, turns out there was an unannounced union meeting that day and the buses weren’t running! Read: unannounced. No signs, nothing. I know it’s not the most sophisticated transit system, but if the whole thing’s shutting down I think there should be some forewarning. At 2:20 a 1 came along. I guess the meeting was over.

Finally!

It was pretty crowded, due to the long wait time because of the meeting. We took the same route as all the other buses out of St. George, heading to the ice cream shop and the airport before going over the Causeway. Instead of going onto North Shore Road, though, we headed down Wilkinson Ave, along with the 3 route. We then turned onto Harrington Sound Road, with scenic views of – yes, you guessed it – Harrington Sound. Remember how I mentioned how the poles on the front of most of the buses are used to deflect palm trees? Well, they certainly must come in handy here, as those trees were literally slapping the windows of the bus.

Two views of Harrington Sound.

Soon the bus turned onto Paynters Road, leaving the 3. We went through a huge golf course, bypassing Tucker’s Point every time (where the 1 is apparently supposed to detour to serve that area). We turned onto South Road, but buses heading to St. George take a detour first. They continue down South Road (before turning onto Paynters Road), then turn onto Mid Ocean Drive. This takes the bus through a strange area with frequent speed bumps, before reaching a hotel. Buses have to u-turn here, but because of their size (I would say they’re the biggest vehicles on the island) they have to reverse a few times.

The golf course.

I find it weird that they only do that going to St. George, as Hamilton is obviously the more desirable destination. The one time people got on here (we rode the 1 twice in both directions), they got off in the middle of the golf course upon finding out that Hamilton-bound buses don’t serve the hotel.

So we continued down South Road for a while, getting back into more residential areas, offering great views of the ocean. All of a sudden, we turned onto Harrington Hundreds Road, a somewhat steep hill, before turning again onto Knapton Hill. There’s actually an interchange with the 3 here, but there are no formal shelters or anything.

Knapton Hill turned back into South Road, and we went through a somewhat rural area. Soon, though, we turned onto Sayle Road, heading up a steep hill. This is Collector’s Hill, a residential neighborhood with a great view of the ocean. There’s also a museum here, the Verdmont Museum, which is an old house.

The lovely view.

We turned onto Verdmont Road, which became Collector’s Hill, then we turned back onto South Road. There was a gas station and a supermarket at this junction, surprisingly. It went back to being rural from there, with occasional residential areas. The bus turned onto Point Finger Road, and the driver told the people going to the Ag Fair to get off here. We were right in front of the hospital (yes, the hospital, not a hospital), a somewhat tall building that was being worked on at the time. We all made our way to the Botanical Gardens and the Ag Fair.

The 1 in St. George.

This is at Grotto Bay.

As is this.

Back in St. George.

There was so much traffic because of the Ag Fair! The bus appears to be stuck at the stop.

The 1 from over a stone wall.

Near the Botanical Gardens.

I wonder what that person’s inquiring about.

These are the sort of bus stops you see a lot in Bermuda. This one’s near the Botanical Gardens.

This is the classic Bermuda bus shelter. Most of them look like this.

Finally, there’s the St. George Bus Depot. This is where the buses all terminate, and it’s somewhat out of the way. We decided to take a little walk up Mullet Bay Road to see what it was like. Here are some of the beautiful views from the walk:

A neighborhood a little outside the town. Notice the sunken ship.

A view of an island.

An excellent view of the town.

This was actually on the other side of the town, but I decided to include it anyway.

We had to turn onto Old Military Road, and entered a pretty bad neighborhood. Locked-up preschools, a dodgy supermarket, and a lot of weird tenements. But we made it to the depot, and it was actually pretty interesting. It seemed like more of a layover point than anything, as most of the buses that were being stored were pretty old. Here are the pictures I took:

A 6, rounding the corner onto Mullet Bay Road.

Some buses lined up.

This is the official first stop of the St. George buses. It doesn’t look too well used…

Another shot of the buses.

And another.

There was an empty shelter a little outside the depot that’s not part of any routes.

Just coming in.

Once again, the buses lined up.

Again.

A front view of some of them.

So that’s part 1 of my trip to Bermuda. In part 2: the Sea Express from St. George to Dockyard, on the other side of the island (“You gotta sea it!”), the 7 and the 8 from Dockyard to Hamilton, the Bermuda Railway Trail (yes, Bermuda once had a railway), and the Hamilton Bus Terminal. Hopefully it won’t take as long to write as this did!