Chateaubelair is the last town of any size on the leeward coast before the road effectively gives up at Richmond and the trailheads for La Soufrière begin. It sits at the head of a wide bay with a long dark-sand beach, a working fishing fleet, and a population of a few thousand. The town took heavy ash fall during the 2021 eruption and is still visibly recovering.
For most travellers Chateaubelair is a fuel stop or a lunch stop on the way up the coast — the bay views are good, and the long beach is almost always empty. Local boatmen can be hired here for trips to the Falls of Baleine when the seas are calm, which is often a better deal than booking from Kingstown.