Grand Cayman Nature Trails
The Quieter Side of Island Life

Grand Cayman nature trails can be a stroll in the Park, like the Woodland Trail at the Botanic Park, or a fairly strenuous hike, like the Mastic Trail. Here’s a brief description of two of them.

The Mastic Trail, named for a particular kind of tree used for making ships’ masts is the days of sailing ships, is off Frank Sound Road just south of the Botanical Park. It’s probably 30 minutes drive from George Town. 

This is a hiking trail so be sure you have proper walking shoes with you if you plan to go far. It isn’t necessary to hike the whole trail though. You can get a good feel for how the island looked before humans re-modelled it in only a mile or so of walking.

The whole trail, from Frank Sound Road in the south to Further Road, near Malpotas Pond, in the north takes in swampy mangrove forest, a rocky area full of crevices out of which trees and plants sprout, a dry tropical forested area that still has remnants of pioneer William Watler’s fruit orchards, and finally a tropical meadow, a savannah.

William Watler was the settler who built the original road over a hundred years ago to get his produce to market and, although it has now been replaced by Frank Sound Road, his achievment is still pretty impressive. It’s wild country for such a small island and ironshore is as hard as… well, iron.

The Mastic Trail wends its way through land owned by the National Trust and they provide guides to assist you in identifying what you’re seeing. Unless you’re an expert in semi-tropical flora and fauna, it’s probably worth going with a guide. Otherwise the only thing you’re likely to observe with certainty is that there are a lot of bugs. To help you identify some of the wildlife you’ll see, I’ve added a Grand Cayman Wildlife page.

This is the longest and ‘wildest’ of the Grand Cayman nature trails.

The Woodland Trail is inside the National Trust’s Botanical Park and that makes it less scary for setting out on your own. And it also has the advantage of markers on the trees and pools to tell you about what you’re seeing.

Halfway along the trail is the blue iguana breeding centre where you can see iguanas from toddlers to teenagers. The adults are out in the Park, which may or may not be a comforting thought; the one in the photo, for example, is about 24 inches long (60 cm) and just a baby. They are scary-looking creatures but the good news is they are harmless. However, as with all wildlife, it isn’t a good idea to feed them.

Rest stops along the way, like the one in the photo below, and a level, groomed path make the Woodland Trail a walk rather than a hike.

Woodland Trail Rest Stop 

Shorts, sandals, and T-shirts are the order of march here. There are ponds around the Trail with turtles but, despite the name of one, no crocodiles. Crocodiles, or caymans, were wiped out centuries ago, which is bad, but, having seen the size of them, probably just as well. 

This impressive Succulent or something (I should have taken notes!) is growing along the Woodland Trail.

Trail information boards also explain the different ponds of Grand Cayman, from fresh to brackish to saltwater, and the different plants and animals that inhabit them.

The Botanic Park was also the only place we saw the Cayman Green Parrot. Sadly, like many national symbols around the world, it has been pushed to the margins of life. As I mentioned earlier, one good reason to start with the Woodland Trail is that many of the trees and plants are labeled so you know what you’re looking at. The Mastic Trail is more ‘wild’. The labeling could use some additional information, other than the name in English and Latin, as in the Trail at the Pirates Caves; however, that’s a small complaint.

Pluses for these Grand Cayman nature trails are:

(1) where the woodland trails trees overhang the path, it feels like ‘shade’ rather than the Mastic’s close buggy ‘jungle’ (only in places!); however, the Mastic Trail has a more ‘natural’ feel and gives a sense of the island the pioneers saw.

(2) you finish the walk where you started, at a gift shop with refreshments — not a bad thing in this heat — on the Woodland Trail. You don’t see a gift shop anywhere along the Mastic Trail, which for me is just perfect.

There are two more Grand Cayman nature trails to talk about, the Nature Reserve at the pond on Northside and Barkers National Park. I’ll get to them another day. 

Return to Botanic Park.

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Cayman Pictures

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Cayman Pictures

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Cayman Pictures

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