Post Box Walks

St Helena has laid out a set of waymarked walks across the island, each graded for difficulty and each ending at a wooden box holding a rubber stamp and an ink pad, so that walkers carry a card and collect the stamps. There are around twenty one of them and between them they cover most of the island's terrain: cloud forest ridges, arid coastal spurs, cliff paths and the flax-covered interior.

What you actually see

• The stamped boxes - the wooden boxes with rubber stamps at each route's end.
• The range of terrain - cloud forest, arid coast, cliff path and flax country.
• The grading - routes marked from easy to very difficult.
• The route cards - the collectable record walkers carry.

When to go

Year round; the climate is mild in all seasons. The interior is wetter and the coast drier. Some routes become dangerous after rain.

Honest expectations

Several routes are genuinely dangerous with loose ground and unfenced drops, and the gradings should be taken seriously. There is no water on most routes. Cloud can close in on the ridge walks.

Nearby

Jamestown is where the route cards are issued, and the routes spread across the whole island.