Bamboo Avenue

Bamboo Avenue, properly Holland Bamboo, is a stretch of the south coast road about four kilometres long where giant bamboo planted on either side in the nineteenth century by the owners of the Holland estate has grown across and met overhead, making a green tunnel that drops the temperature noticeably as you drive into it. It has been a landmark for well over a century and is protected, though hurricanes and drought have thinned it in places and replanting has been needed more than once. Vendors sell jelly coconut and peppered shrimp from Middle Quarters at pull-offs along the way, which is as much a part of the stop as the bamboo.

Highlights

• The bamboo tunnel - four kilometres of arching giant bamboo over the road.
• The temperature drop - noticeably cooler inside the tunnel.
• Peppered shrimp - sold at Middle Quarters at the eastern end.
• Jelly coconut - opened at the roadside pull-offs.

When to go

December to April is drier. Any time of day works, though early morning light through the bamboo is the best for photographs. It is a drive-through rather than a destination, so it fits into a south coast trip.

Things to know

It is a road, and stopping means pulling onto a narrow verge with traffic passing close. Vendors approach cars insistently at the pull-offs. Storm damage has thinned sections and it is patchier than the photographs suggest. The stop takes twenty minutes and does not warrant a special journey.

Nearby

Y S Falls is fifteen minutes; Black River is twenty minutes south.