THE start of Bermuda's 400th birthday celebrations are now just days away, with the first official party to take place on Front Street on January 3.

However, community organisation Imagine Bermuda 2009 has teamed up with the Bermuda National Trust and the Parks Department to usher in the island's quadricentennial even earlier, at the very site of the first visitation to the island, long before Sir George Somers set foot on the Devil's Isles.

The three local groups will be hosting a New Year's Day Walk, incorporating presentations by Bermuda's foremost experts on both our heritage and natural environment.

The tour will start at Spittal Pond and finish at Spanish Rock, the outcrop at the end of the winding trail that represents the oldest evidence of humans on the island.

Renowned local environmentalist David Wingate will give a talk on Bermuda's natural history, followed by historian Lance Furbert, who will speak on the island's heritage.

Also giving presentations will be the Audubon Society's Andrew Dobson, who will demonstrate bird-watching techniques, and the Astrononomical Society's Eddie McGonagle, who will show participants how to operate telescopes to mark the 400th birthday of the device's invention. Also on hand will be educator, author and historian Ruth Thomas, who will explain the history of Spittal Pond cave Jeffrey's Hole, named after a slave who, according to local lore, escaped and made his temporary shelter there.

Imagine Bermuda 2009's Glenn Fubler described the New Year's Day Walk, which will start at 1 p.m., as "an opportunity to highlight and foster our shared and diverse heritage". He added that the event will be especially poignant for young Bermudians, who may not know much about the significance of Spanish Rock and its markings.

"It is providing an opportunity for young people to appreciate the fact that we can all leave some 'mark' in the world," he said, referring to the inscriptions on the rock, located on the edge of a south-facing cliff, where sailors first landed on Bermuda's shores.

For years, the crudely carved initials 'R' and 'P', with the date '1543', were wrongly attributed to Spanish explorers shipwrecked on the island after a storm, hence Spanish Rock's misleading name.

Only last century was it determined that the inscription, now preserved in bronze, was probably the result of a Portuguese vessel wrecked on the reefs on the way back from Santo Domingo, with 'RP' likely standing for 'Rex Portugaliae', referring to Joao III, Portugal's monarch at that time.

The crew is thought to have spent four months here, the first humans to make Bermuda their home, carving new ships out of our endemic cedar trees before leaving the island, which they believed to be haunted by spirits or devils.

Bermuda was visited frequently in the early 1600s as ships passed by on the way from Europe to the New World, but the island was not permanently settled until Sir George Somers' decision to build St. George's – the first English town in the Western Hemisphere – in 1612.

Mr. Fubler and his co-organisers hope this walk will remind families of Bermuda's long and storied history, including the role the Spittal Pond area played for early settlers and slaves.

"This area of Spanish Rock and Spittal Pond also served as a refuge for at least one person who, more than two centuries ago, escaped slavery and found a safe haven in the thick woods," he said.

"Spittal Pond also served as a refuge for families of Portuguese descent who gathered here on Sunday afternoons for recreational activities.

"These families came to renew themselves after a week's work on the many farms in the area which served as an important part of the economic life of the island in the late 19th and early 20th centuries."

The New Year's Day Walk will run from 1 p.m. until 3.30 p.m. The starting point for the tour is the eastern car park at Spittal Pond and it will end at the western car park. Parking sites will be at Harrington Hundreds Grocery and St. Mark's Church.