As both day 10 & 11 are beach days I will post their blogs together tomorrow…but in the meantime here are three videos Irfaan made of trips he does to the northern & southern areas of the island …Unfortunatly he wasn’t our guide the day we went North….but he does similar tours……only with far less walking !!!! …..
The Marina shopping area in Port Louis.
Cap Malheureux, the most northerly point of Mauritius, where the British landed in 1810
The final video is taken in the South where we visited two days ago…it is at Ganga Talao – The Hindu Temple area
We hope these videos Irfann Neamuth has made shows you some of the delights Mauritius has to offer.
Thank you Irfaan for allowing us to show case Mauritius through your videos.
Once again we had booked a tour with Hello Islands. It was a full 8 hour tour to see the South of Mauritius. We approached it with a little trepidation….. although we had enjoyed seeing most of what we’d seen on our North Island tour, we had not enjoyed the amount of walking, lack of comfort stops or drink stops or the rather negative driver/guide who was very good at telling us what he couldn’t do but not what he could do to make our trip more comfortable and individualised for us and our interests. We considered €170 for each trip quite a lot of money so we were keen not to feel disappointed in any way this time….
Our apprehension was totally unnecessary, from the moment we met Irfaan Neamuth we knew we were going to have a wonderfully happy day.
This young man is a real asset and a credit to Hello Islands.
He started by saying he wanted us to have a day to remember and he told us what the plan was for the day….then he asked if there was anything we wanted to change..we said we didn’t want to go to the “winery” or the rum distillery. We are not drinkers and consequently having been to both of these several times in numerous countries we didn’t feel the need to visit again. Irfaan was fine about this and said he could already think of somewhere else we could go to instead.
He was a chatty young man with a zest for life. He had started making videos of his tours and he enjoyed photography…he could see this was a passion of ours as well. He also said he’d be our model at the various different places we were going to, he wanted some photos for his social media…..great we love a good model!! It would save John from doing his “man at C&A pose”(as our camera club friends call it!!!)
Irfaan automatically slowed the car and wound the windows down when there was a view he thought we’d like a picture of.
We learnt that this was the second highest mountain – Pieter Both – and stands at 820 metres just 10 metres shorter than the highest mountain on Mauritius. The balancing rock is a natural feature caused by erosion….ahhh our companion for the day was not just our guide, driver, photographer, videographer, historian but also a geographer….we’ve fallen on our feet…someone with the same interests as us…..
Our first stop was at a shop which made model galleons….although rather touristy the actual workshop up a ramp at the back was fascinating.
We declined from buying one of the hundreds of boats they had for sale but we did buy a hanging, with dodos on it….as we have no wall space available we can hang it from the ceiling at home.
Our next stop was the dormant crater , Trou aux Ceres which is a dormant volcanic crater about a kilometre from Curepipe, the second most populated town, after Port Louis. The crater is a magnificent canopy of dense vegetation.
The crater is 300 -350 m in diameter and 80 m deep, it is 605m above sea level. It last erupted 700,000 years ago.
Our model Irfaan
The weather station next to the crater stood moodily in a threatening sky
A vender was selling some very appetising looking wild raspberries
Because of the height we also had a fantastic 360 view
It was however hazy as the clouds moved in..We headed on to our next sightseeing, a Hindu temple complex…on the way we passed the reservoir which supplies the south of the island with water..
As we continued the heavens opened and the visibility was very poor….Irfaan now became a weatherman, as well as his numerous other skills, and decided to reroute us and come back to the sacred place after the rain..
So u-turning we headed for Black River Gorges National Park where the sun was shining. This is the largest protective forest of Maurius. It’s a national park with over 50 kms of walking trails under the thick vegetation canopy. You can actually walk through the national park to Mauritius’s highest peak – Black River peak, Piton dela Petite Riviere Noire – which is 828m high.
The park is also home to many species of birds which are unique to Mauritius. During our short visit we had a brief glimpse of the Echo Parakeet – John saw its head but I didn’t, we also saw several Long-tailed birds. They are also known as the tropicbird. We saw several White Long Tails soaring down in the gorge over the canopy but Unfortunatly none of the rarer Red Long-tails.
Our next stop were the waterfalls at Chamarel.
We passed passed through the pay booth. It’s quite reasonable at MUR 800 each around about £12 each. We went to the view point. The waterfall drops nearly 100m off a cliff. It is fed by 3 distinct streams.
Irfaan took a few pictures of me at the falls while John climbed the 80 steps to a higher view point so that he could capture the full drop.
Chamarel is named after Charles-Antoine de Chazal de Chamarel . He and his brother inherited the land from his step father and descendants later opened up the vast estate to enable the waterfall to be seen and enjoyed as well as the coloured earths in the Geo Park.
We drove quickly on to The Geo Park as the sky once again looked threatening.
We were excited by this as we have seen coloured earths on the TV in South America and I think Azerbaijan but we’ve never seen it in real life ourselves…
It was very easy to understand…there were 7 coloured earths and they are either iron oxides or aluminium oxides.
These differently coloured sands settle in different layers acquiring a surrealistic, striped colouring originating from the decomposition of volcanic rock.
It is now one of the Islands main tourist attractions.
Our model!!
There is a walk way around the area and further explanation boards
There are also beehives and explanation boards ..
…and a giant tortoise breeding area…there were quite a few small tortoises in the nursery area which is covered with wire as well as the bigger enclosures for the adults
We spent quite a while thoroughly enjoying gazing at the coloured soil…it’s really quite something…..We left just in time as it started to rain..
Then Irfaan took us to a view point which wasn’t included in our tour, it had magnificent views looking at Le Morne Brabant, a rock with a sad history – it is a 556m monolith on a peninsula at the South Western tip of Mauritius. It is a designated world heritage site and served as a hilltop shelter and fortress for runaway slaves in the 18th & 19th centuries. It soon became a global symbol of the fight for freedom. Many slaves committed suicide here rather than be captured again…the inscription on the rock says that “people chose the kiss of death rather than the chains of slavery”
From here we went back to Ganga Talao the Hindu sacred lake located in a volcanic crater. The name translates as The Lake of Ganga – Ganges. In 1972 some holy water from The Ganges River itself was mixed here establishing a symbolic link with India’s sacred river. The lake was then renamed Ganga Talao.
There are 2 statues both 33 metres in height at the entrance to this holy area. The first is Durga Mata Murti …..
The second is of the Hindu god Shiva. It’s been copied faithfully from the Shiva Statue in Gujarat.
There are many other temples dedicated to other gods.
Driving through to the next temple we saw a lovely sign …
We dutifully took our shoes off when entering the temple ..
This was the final stop for our tour….we drove back to the hotel. Irfaan kindly stopped so we could go to the supermarket and buy more water, sugar free coke and lots of lunchtime yummies to nibble on for the rest of our stay.
We felt very blessed that Irfaan had been our driver, kind and considerate. He parked in the disabled bays to cut down on the amount of walking I had to do, he thought of everything a man with so many skills , and not least of all good fun to be with….Thank you so much Irfaan for a wonderful day…we learnt so much and truly enjoyed ourselves and it was all thanks to this wonderful driver/guide.
We ended the day with supper in the buffet and an early night.
We did the usual thing for breakfast….i really am becoming a bit addicted to pancakes and honey….so I mixed it up a bit with an egg yolk on avocado on toast…yum, yum….
Returning to our room we put on swim wear and off we went to the beach. Two sun-loungers in the shade were grabbed and we were set for snoozing in the sun….until of course I got itchy feet and wanted to swim…..we put on our swim shoes incase it was rocky and down to the waters edge we went…..there was only a couple of people swimming…and they were grumbling it was cold. So we braced ourselves and took the plunge…it was heaven …much warmer than the swimming pool. We swam for some time, John in the shallows and I went out deeper, giving him the occasional wave…
It was a first…the first time we had swam in the Indian Ocean…..so we can now add it to our list of places we’ve swam…Mediterranean Sea, Red Sea, Dead Sea, Caribbean Sea, North Sea, The Aegean Sea, The Adriatic Sea, The English Channel, Golf of Mexico ( now called Golf Of America ??!!), Atlantic Ocean and now the Indian Ocean…..we’ve still got a lot more seas and oceans to swim in!! But all in good time.
We returned to the loungers to people watch…
John investigated the chessboard!Proof that we’d been in the sea!!
Returning to our room about 1pm we readied ourselves for a trip out in the glass bottom boat at 2pm.
We set off from the pier near the boat house.
Our Captain Micheal gave us a short speech about what we might or might not see and then we were off leaving the hotel behind us..
Everyone sat around the outside and looked down into one of the 3 openings..
Unfortunately the glass was tinted so all the photos were very blue..but here are a few
It was a nice experience lasting only about an hour.
We returned back to our room to get ready for the evening meal.
John wandered down towards the sea a few yards from our room to get some sunset photos through the Banyan Tree.
We had once again booked La Maree Seafood restaurant.
It’s very picturesque in the evening under the stars
We spent some time looking at the menu
Before deciding once again on Prawn Cocktail.
Followed by the catch of the day which was swordfish.
We had dessert but once again it was so yummy I forgot to take a picture until the last moment …..
Another lovely meal…we returned to our room to face time our Granddaughter on her 15th birthday and to chat to that side of the family.
Another exquisite day in paradise….tomorrow we are up early for an excursion so it was early to sleep for us.
After yesterday’s exertions we needed a very quiet day….believe it or not the weather also felt the same…it was dull and overcast with a really threatening sky…
We breakfasted at 10 am as late as we could and wandered up to reception to book a table in the Le Banyan Asian Fusion restaurant for tonight and La Maree again for Sunday night.
We had stopped on the way to reception to observe the turtle pool in the atrium.
Returning to our room we spent an hour or so playing cards, downloading photos, updating the day before blog.
Around mid day we wandered back to reception and asked for a buggy to take us to the stables and pet farm..it was no sooner said than done.
There was no one around so we greeted each of the horses, said hello to the one rescue dog they have and went on to watch the giant tortoises.
They are as previously extremely photogenic.
This time we went into the rabbits, cow, duck and chicken enclosures.
We walked through the gates of The Chateau Mon Desir and up to the canon again.
At this point it had started to lightly rain. A beautifully dressed Indian family had called the buggy to take them back to the hotel
We decided to take refuge in the Anno 1743 restaurant.
It was here we met Rhubesh the restaurant manager. He offered to show us around.
What a delightful gentleman he is. We had a good browse of the menu and decided that we would like to eat there next Wednesday….as that would give us time to go back a second time if we enjoyed it!! The menu had reasonably priced steaks, burgers, chicken etc on …a real bistro style menu…yummy!
Rhubesh explained that The Nest, a roof top bar wasn’t open at the moment due to the inclement weather and the stairs up to it getting slippery and dangerous. But the Distillery Bar was open.
He grabbed the keys and took us in to look around. Wow! What a place floor to ceiling bottles….talk about a lot of rum….all in a really lovely bar.
Rhubesh The manager of Anno 1743 & The Distillery
We were also introduced to the Head Chef, Marday, another lovely gentleman…
It was so nice to meet two gentleman who were not only cheerful, happy souls but also passionate about their work.
We are really looking forward to eating there next week.
We took our leave and wandered back along the river side.
We were quite fascinated by the numerous circular holes and discussed whether we thought they were water rat or vole holes…..
but we were wrong on both counts as we saw a big black body and long legs disappearing down the holes, to start with we thought it was a spider, but on closer examination of my pictures I realised it was actually crabs…
We spent sometime watching them before ambling on. Both Toto & Titti, the 2 mallard ducks were on the river along with a couple of moorhens..
On getting to the boathouse we stopped to book a glass bottom boat trip for tomorrow. Returning to our room we passed the gazebo which was being set up for a wedding.
The rest of the day we spent resting, playing cards and people watching and listening to the palms rustling in the light rain.
In the evening we went to the Le Banyan Asian Fusion restaurant. We had a lovely table looking out to sea in one direction and across the river mouth in the other direction..
We chose different starters, John had tempura prawns
Whilst I had chicken wonton soup
We then each had chicken gyoza…I missed the photo as they were so yummy we just got stuck in…!!!
We followed this with a main course of seafood and rice…this consisted of 6 big prawns, 1 mussel, and lots of bits of calamari….and a lot of fried rice..
To round it all off I had chocolate and vanilla and John had pistachio and vanilla ice cream.
It was all very yummy and only cost £5 more than our included meal allocation .
We retired to bed relaxed with full tummies…..same again tomorrow please!
