KEVON FELMINE

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

I of­ten hear peo­ple say on a hike, “Wow! I did not know Trinidad has places beau­ti­ful like this.”

But there is an abun­dance of stun­ning scenery around the is­land. For those of you who trav­el far East, you might have passed Quare Road in Va­len­cia and were ig­no­rant of the mag­ic hid­den in­side. Why would you? As you dri­ve through the qui­et com­mu­ni­ty, a gate that bars fur­ther ac­cess and a big Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) tank will let you know it is a re­strict­ed area.

Quare Road leads to WASA's Hol­lis Reser­voir, one of the util­i­ty com­pa­ny's many wa­ter sources. But walk­ing on a path right at the tank, through the bush­es and a few streams, takes you to one of the most en­chant­i­ng rivers in T&T. The Quare Riv­er stretch­es miles from the North­ern Range in­to the Hol­lis Reser­voir. The low­er part of the Quare Riv­er is the spill-off from the ever-flow­ing dam that pro­vides some of the most pris­tine wa­ters through mi­ni gorges and wa­ter­falls be­fore it reach­es the town.

Last Sun­day's jour­ney to the coun­try­side saw a few hik­ing groups and leisure seek­ers tak­ing the trek up­riv­er. It starts at the tank and up the road un­til you meet a stony path­way lead­ing to an old stair­case that takes you down to a damned area. It is a pop­u­lar spot for limers around the vil­lage. It has its mi­ni wa­ter­fall, but it is a bit dif­fi­cult to climb down.

Someone created their little zen area.

KEVON FELMINE

The fun awaits up­stream as a ten-15 minute walk up the wind­ing riv­er gets deep in a canyon for­ma­tion that is per­fect for swim­ming and div­ing. If you can­not swim, you can cross on the side, but it is a nar­row path that re­quires good bal­ance and ad­e­quate up­per body strength. Some hik­ers climb up the mi­ni wa­ter slide in this part of the riv­er to skate down as there is am­ple wa­ter and force to cush­ion the rock in this scorch­ing dry sea­son.

Five min­utes fur­ther up­stream, where a trib­u­tary meets the riv­er, is the per­fect place for re­lax­ation. The grav­el banks are a great place to set up your food, drinks and sup­plies, and the slop­ing riverbed makes it easy for swim­mers and non-swim­mers to en­joy the cool swim or soak in the crys­tal-clear wa­ter.

While the Quare Riv­er is not as known as Cau­ra and Va­len­cia rivers, some limers still refuse to un­der­stand the im­por­tance of leav­ing a clean scene. There were some dis­card­ed Sty­ro­foam con­tain­ers, plas­tic bot­tles and snack wrap­pers left be­hind.

WASA re­stricts Quare Road be­cause it leads to the Hol­lis Reser­voir: a beau­ti­ful place for an in­dus­tri­al fa­cil­i­ty. Past colo­nial Gov­er­nor Sir Claude Hol­lis com­mis­sioned its con­struc­tion in 1936, mak­ing it the old­est of its kind in T&T. Ac­cord­ing to WASA, work­ers con­struct­ed the reser­voir by damming the Quare Riv­er, which en­ters the dammed area “in a ma­jes­tic split se­ries of wa­ter­falls that con­stant­ly re­plen­ish the lake from which an un­fail­ing sup­ply is drawn.”

Hikers having a splash in the Quare River.

KEVON FELMINE

Hik­ers trek to the reser­voir's en­trance by en­dur­ing six kilo­me­tres of hills from the Heights of Aripo. WASA does not al­low the pub­lic in­to its fa­cil­i­ty.

While the Hol­lis Reser­voir hike is for the ex­pe­ri­ence and fit, a dri­ve to the Quare Riv­er can cov­er your ther­a­peu­tic needs af­ter life's stress­es from the past week.

An old staircase leads the way to the first pool.

KEVON FELMINE

Fallen trees across the river add a bit of excitement to the trek.

KEVON FELMINE