Ascension Island - Day Three
Many places with a lot of volcanic activity have places supposedly inhabited by the devil. Ascension is no different. There’s the devil’s race-track, the devil’s ashpit and a couple of other devil-related sites. On the third day I got invited to join a group of people on their tour of a couple of these tourist attractions which I readily accepted.
The first place we headed to was the devil’s racetrack. This is a caldera, the basin often found at top of volcanoes. Many are lakes. Lake Taupo in New Zealand is a caldera from a huge volcano which exploded thousands of years ago. The caldera on Ascension is dry because it’s on a island at the equator so water isn’t readily available.
Tourist maps of ascension are pretty limited in their detail and the first challenge we encountered was finding this tourist attraction. Every leaflet mentioned it so we thought it should be easy to find. It wasn’t, but we eventually found the ‘carpark’ and pulled in. The next challenge was reaching the place. To do so we had to climb up the outside of the volcano (it’s extinct, don’t worry!). We were told the school kids were often brought here so figured it would be an easy walk, which is was in some respects but the school kids on Ascension are definitely hardier than their British counterparts!
The ground was littered with lava that was very brittle. It was called porcelain lava because when it broke is sounded like breaking crockery. It was quite freaky – you felt like you were walking over thousands of plates! The lava was clearly from lava bombs that had been thrown out during an eruption. They were all sorts of shapes, all broken, though some were clearly once at least slightly round.
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It was quite difficult to walk on, especially as it kept breaking, and while the gradient wasn’t too severe the sun was blazing down and the heat was radiating off everything. When we got to the top we were presented with a massive circular depression, and no clear path down.
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One of the guys in our group went on ahead and found a sort of path down, through the lava and rubble, to the bottom. It was hard enough to see the path, let alone follow it, and we all found it hard to believe that school children were brought here!
When we got down to the bottom it was quite an anticlimax, to be honest. There’s a series of circular rings running around the caldera which are what give it the name ‘devil’s racetrack’ but it was just a big circular thing. It was quite cool to think you were standing on the top of a volcano but there wasn’t really that much to see.
We had a look round then found our way back to the car. We decided to head on to the devil’s ashpit. It’s another natural feature, this time a massive crevice with a very straight shear side at the back. I don’t really know why it’s got the name it has, and again, it wasn’t really that impressive. The view was nice though.
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We did think about going to another devil site but decided against it as the drive would be mostly off-road. It was a nice day, with good company, but the attractions really highlighted the lack of attractions on Ascension! In most places the would be insignificant, places you’d only go to once you’ve run out of decent things to do. Here they were the attractions to see – you haven’t seen Ascension if you haven’t seen the devil’s racetrack! At least I can say I’ve seen Ascension now!
The first place we headed to was the devil’s racetrack. This is a caldera, the basin often found at top of volcanoes. Many are lakes. Lake Taupo in New Zealand is a caldera from a huge volcano which exploded thousands of years ago. The caldera on Ascension is dry because it’s on a island at the equator so water isn’t readily available.
Tourist maps of ascension are pretty limited in their detail and the first challenge we encountered was finding this tourist attraction. Every leaflet mentioned it so we thought it should be easy to find. It wasn’t, but we eventually found the ‘carpark’ and pulled in. The next challenge was reaching the place. To do so we had to climb up the outside of the volcano (it’s extinct, don’t worry!). We were told the school kids were often brought here so figured it would be an easy walk, which is was in some respects but the school kids on Ascension are definitely hardier than their British counterparts!
The ground was littered with lava that was very brittle. It was called porcelain lava because when it broke is sounded like breaking crockery. It was quite freaky – you felt like you were walking over thousands of plates! The lava was clearly from lava bombs that had been thrown out during an eruption. They were all sorts of shapes, all broken, though some were clearly once at least slightly round.
It was quite difficult to walk on, especially as it kept breaking, and while the gradient wasn’t too severe the sun was blazing down and the heat was radiating off everything. When we got to the top we were presented with a massive circular depression, and no clear path down.
One of the guys in our group went on ahead and found a sort of path down, through the lava and rubble, to the bottom. It was hard enough to see the path, let alone follow it, and we all found it hard to believe that school children were brought here!
When we got down to the bottom it was quite an anticlimax, to be honest. There’s a series of circular rings running around the caldera which are what give it the name ‘devil’s racetrack’ but it was just a big circular thing. It was quite cool to think you were standing on the top of a volcano but there wasn’t really that much to see.
We had a look round then found our way back to the car. We decided to head on to the devil’s ashpit. It’s another natural feature, this time a massive crevice with a very straight shear side at the back. I don’t really know why it’s got the name it has, and again, it wasn’t really that impressive. The view was nice though.
We did think about going to another devil site but decided against it as the drive would be mostly off-road. It was a nice day, with good company, but the attractions really highlighted the lack of attractions on Ascension! In most places the would be insignificant, places you’d only go to once you’ve run out of decent things to do. Here they were the attractions to see – you haven’t seen Ascension if you haven’t seen the devil’s racetrack! At least I can say I’ve seen Ascension now!
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