Black sand

This was almost the weirdest thing I had ever seen - beaches of fine black sand !!

I always somehow associate 'blackness' with - wet peaty boggy areas, dirtiness, coal dust, soot, wet mud, mouldiness etc - u get the general drift here - all pretty gruesome things to me.

So to have beaches of the grimy looking sand was interesting to say the least. I tried walking on it to start with to see if my feet would be stained at all (not as it happens in the end) and it fell off clothing and towels like ordinary yellow sand.


There, not as bad as it looked at all, and even though you sort of expected it to leave a grey film of dust on your feet - nothing !! all nice and clean. Lovely.

In fact though, I actually preferred the volcanic lava rocks to the sand, much more exciting visually. Sort of more what you'd expect to see (tut tut, such conventional thinking !).


The drama was in the contrast of the white houses to the blackness of the rocks and the blueness of the seas and sky.


No mid-tones here, definitely a wow factor though.