Middleham Falls

Middleham Falls is not the easiest waterfall on the island to reach, and I think that’s the entire point. The trailhead sits near the village of Cochrane, inland from Roseau, and the hike in — through Morne Trois Pitons National Park territory but distinct from the more famous trails there — is a genuine workout: root-tangled steps, a couple of stream crossings depending on recent rain, and a canopy so thick overhead that the light arrives filtered and green, like being underwater without the water. It took me just under an hour each way, moving at a reasonable but unhurried pace, and I did not see another person for most of the climb.

The reward, when you finally hear it before you see it, is a sixty-metre curtain of water dropping from a break in the cliff face into a cold, deep pool ringed by boulders. I swam straight out into the middle of it, which is colder than anything the Caribbean coast prepares you for, and floated on my back looking up at the fall with spray drifting sideways in whatever breeze made it down into the gorge. There is a mist that comes off the base of the falls that you feel on your skin before you’re anywhere near the water — Dominica does this constantly, announcing its waterfalls with humidity before you arrive at them.

What struck me most on this hike was the forest itself rather than the destination. Middleham sits within one of the last significant stands of old-growth rainforest left on the island, and the trees are enormous in a way that photographs never quite capture — gommier trees with buttress roots taller than I am, epiphytes stacked on epiphytes, the occasional flash of a purple-throated Carib hummingbird moving through the understory faster than my eyes could track. I stopped counting the number of times I said “look at that” out loud to no one.

When to go: Dry season, January through April, gives the surest footing on the trail and the clearest water in the pool. A local guide isn’t required but is worth hiring in Cochrane if you want the plant and bird life properly identified rather than just admired vaguely, which is what I did.