Avocat Waterfall

Updated: Aug 7, 2023

Distance: 3.5km | Type: Out and Back | Difficulty: Easy

At the trail head, we ran into Pastor Danny Ramdial and his wife Ria who invited us into their home on our return. Danny remembered us from the last time we had visited Avocat in the rainy season and had to cross the mountain to return as the river had swollen and was unsafe to traverse. For those of you who know Avocat well, their house was formerly Pop's wife's house that she moved out of after Pop's passed away.

The hike itself was beautiful and fairly easy; quite the far cry from the last time we saw it in the flash flood in 2021. The raging waters have significantly affected the watercourse and much of the trail along the river bank has eroded. We spent most of the trip to the waterfall in the river, wading through its shallows beds, with occasional crossings up onto the banks to save time and energy.

There was however, one choke point in the river where flood waters had deposited broken trees which gave us a little excitement to climb over and under.

As the river bends sharply to the left, it is joined on the right by the tributary coming from the waterfall. There are two access routes to the waterfall at this point, you can swim across the river and walk up the shallow tributary, or you can cross the river and take the narrow trail up and over to the start of the waterfall. Normally we swim across, but depending on the gear load we will send one or two people over the hill to make sure everything stays dry. The approach to the pool is stunning from either direction. We arrived at the pool which has become even more picturesque. The access has opened up further and the platform has extended out under the waterfall allowing us to stand under the cascading water.

We arrived and I was ready to dive in, but the girls had other ideas. The first call to business was an impromptu photoshoot which, in hindsight, was really unavoidable with Stefan being there. He is well known in the group's 'professional' photographer. After that, we dove in to t

he cold water and made our way under the fall. There is nothing like being under a waterfall, surrounded only by nature, and other adventurers. I know I talk about this in a lot of my posts, but I really do love the peace created by the white noise of the waterfall and the sounds of nature. I don't think there is anything else like it to drain the stress out of your body.

Once we got back we stopped in by Danny and Ria for a small lime. While Ria prepared saheina, channa and coffee for us, Danny and I had an interesting conversation about his plans for the area. He intends to take advantage of the fertile soil, altitude, and gentle hills to cultivate coffee, coconuts, cocoa, and medicinal herbs and possibly set up an apiary to start preparing his own honey. If you are ever making this trip, I recommend that you stop in and see Danny and Ria before heading off to the falls as you can arrange snacks or lunch for after the hike.