There are four buses that go from St. George to Hamilton on the other side of the island. The #1 goes along the south shore. The #3 takes the Middle Rd. The #10 and #11 go along the north shore.
I chose to take the #10 to a village called Flats. This is where the Bermuda Aquarium and Zoo are located. There is also a hiking trail that takes a bridge across the inlet. It’s the old railroad trail.
Flats
Flats Village Main Street
The main street through the village is narrow, with limited walking space. Thankfully the drivers are very respectful toward pedestrians.
Flats has an inlet from the sea. Unfortunately, a sailboat could not get through the inlet with the Railroad Trail walking bridge. This is okay, though. The little harbor is crowded with power boats and mooring balls. There is no room for another boat of any type!
Aquarium and Zoo
The Bermuda Aquarium and Zoo are located in Flats. There are sea turtles in a pool by the sidewalk outside the building.
The Aquarium has typical fish tanks with all kinds of local fish varieties. However, my favorite was the Harbor Seals.
I learned that they go blind from cataracts in their early 20s. In the wild, they will live to about 30 years old and in captivity, for another 5 years. Watching the harbor seals swim around the tank, knowing they were blind was amazing. They did not bump into anything or each other. I was told they do not rely heavily on eyesight anyway. Instead, they use smell and senses from their whiskers.
For a small zoo, it was really nice. The lemurs were my favorite! As I followed the zoo’s walking path, I went through a door that led to a room that explained the Madagascar exhibit. This room is actually a separation zone. After walking through the next door, I entered the exhibit area. The Lemurs were free to roam. Two were playing and one of them ran right across my foot!
The Ring Tailed Lemurs spend most of their time hopping from branch to branch in the trees.
The Red Ruffed Lemurs climb through the rocks. They have an incredibly raucous screech. I experienced the screech when a Ring Tailed Lemur encroached into the rock area. It did not take long for the Ring Tailed Lemur to turn around.
I did see the flamingos that every warm-weather zoo has.
Surprising to me, there was this pair of Galapagos Tourtises, as well.
Railroad Trail
After visiting the Aquarium and Zoo, I walked the narrow road among the traffic to the nearest entry point for the Railroad Trail. I walked the section from Flats to Shelly Bay; a little over a mile. The scenery was beautiful.
I found the Railroad Trail bridge over the entrance to Flats Harbor has not been completed. The bridge was blocked off at the time of this writing. This next photo was taken from the base of the bridge. This is Gibbons Bay.
To get to the other side of the bridge, I had to walk through the village of Flats. The walk parallels the coast, which is very rocky.
There is a Railroad Museum along the path. However, it was closed when I was there.
Further down the trail, I found these ruins. It’s a small place… maybe two rooms. So, I’m guessing it was a small home from long ago.
A short distance beyond the ruins, I reached Shelly Bay. There is a nice playground for the kids and a beach for all. It was a cold day when I made this walk in March… like 68 degrees. So the beach was empty and had not had the seaweed raked. None of the pictures I took would do this justice.
However, I was luck to see a cargo ship departing Bermuda. It was using the Narrows Channel which comes close to shore.
There is the North Channel which goes much farther from shore. This is used by bigger ships… like this cruise ship on it’s way to Heritage Warf.
