For the last year or so, me and Charlotte have been
Geocaching. For those that don't know what this is, it is basically a global Hide and Seek game. People hide caches and post them on the Geocache website with a GPS location. We started doing this as an activity we could do with each other that would get us out of the house and to places we wouldn't normally go to. One of the great things about geocaching is that people place caches in locations in order to get you to go there. So in planning for this trip we went through the geocaches located in Mauritius and selected some that we liked the look of. In doing this we found some places to go to that we probably wouldn't have known about.
One of the locations on our list was Chamarel.
The village of Chamarel is home to some popular tourist attractions, most notably Chamarel Falls and The Coloured Earths of Chamarel (there is a rum distillery that you can read about in my brothers blog as well and some nice restaurants). My mum had been here before so we may have come here anyway but the added bonus of finding a Geocache meant that we were definitely going!!
The drive took south along the east coast and then, after a sharp right turn, through the start of the Black river National Park. This region is beautiful. It's like driving through Jurassic Park (but without the annoying kids, film stars and dinosaurs!!). The views as we climbed the mountain, winding around the narrow road were spectacular. The Micras....sorry March's, performed admirably as we climbed and climbed until we peaked and then dropped down toward Chamarel. After paying we entered the park and drove along the bumpy, narrow road following the signs for the Falls and Coloured Earths. The drive was great fun, made more exciting by the feeling of being in the wild! Palm and banana trees all around along with the ever present sugar cane pushing it's way in here and there. As we came down a steep part of the road we didn't need the sign post to tell us that the Falls were on our left! We could see the cliff face and hear the water. We pulled into the car park and all piled out to get a better look. I'm getting bored of using words like "beautiful" and "stunning" and "gorgeous" but as I'm not a very articulate person (I refer you to my brother for that!) it's all I have so sorry! The view was beautiful.
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The Nottingham Owadallys at Chamarel Falls
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| Chamarel Falls |
Looking across at the falls from the viewing platform, in the quiet surroundings was so relaxing. I could have stayed there for hours. We climbed up to a higher viewing point to get a better view and take some pictures and noticed that a lot of the leaves of the plants had names inscribed on them. So while I was taking pictures my vandal of a wife added her handywork ;-)
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| You can take the girl out of Clifton.....vandalism by Tracey! |
Once the pictures were taken and everyone got their breath back, we headed back into the cars and off to the Coloured Earth. As we walked down past the ticket booth (hang onto your entry ticket as you'll need to show it) I was really impressed at how the site had been planted. On the drive in you could see that they had been landscaping a bit and I imagine in years to come it will enhance the atmosphere of the park a great deal, making the drive along the road not just a means to get to the site but as part of the visit, a mood setter. The Coloured Earths appear into view as you walk down the path from car park, a beautiful wave of earth in different shades rising in front of you. The kids didn't seem too impressed and went off running around the gardens as I admired this wonderful natural attraction. I'm not going to bore you with why it exists or even attempt to describe it using my crude vocabulary but if you come to Mauritius it really is worth a visit. It's not an all day thing and you can only look at it from so many viewing points but it would be a shame if you didn't see it with your own eyes.
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| Coloured Earths of Chamarel |
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| Coloured Earths of Chamarel |
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| My Dad admiring Chamarel |
After several pictures were taken I turned to see where the kids had got to and was surprised to see they had walked down a small slope and were standing by a fenced in area that contained several giant tortoises! I went to investigate and found these melancholy looking creatures holding my attention for much longer than an old, slow moving animal should!! As we were admiring them and the kids were making lots of "oo" and "aawww" noises mum told us that there were loads more at the Crocodile Park so it might be worth not spending loads of time with these ones! A quick coffee in the cafe (where I got to watch sugar cane being pressed and the juice extracted for a drink) and then we were back off to the cars. We headed back the way we came, through the relaxing scenery and back out of the park and onto the road south toward la Vanille Crocodile Park.
As with most attractions getting to the general area of the attraction is fine but then locating the actual entrance requires you to pay attention and keep an eye out for signs! Of course if you hire a driver then you won't have any problems. I was convinced we were going the wrong way, as we drove down another sugar cane field track, but suddenly the big sign for the entrance was in front of us. We drove in and parked in the car park what is shaded by some large trees. As we all disembarked again we noticed a huge skull on display just to the side of the car park and went to investigate and found it was a whale skull! (There was a Geocache somewhere here and me and my nephews planned on looking for it when we came out of the park).
We went into the park and the first thing you see is the crocodile pen. They looked bored but well cared for. I get confused at "zoo" type parks. I realise why they exist and I am grateful for them otherwise I wouldn't be able to see the animals that are there but I do have twinges of feeling sorry for the animals at times as I walk round them. To be fair to la Vanille it was well kept and the animals seemed to very well cared for and not in any distress (although the monkey pen, that we saw last, did look out of place and unnecessary). Anyway we immediately headed to the main attraction at the park; the Giant Tortoises!! I figured we'd pop up to see them, have our pictures taken with them and then head off. How wrong could I have been! We were there for nearly an hour! The main area has about 100 giant tortoises of various ages, the oldest being about 70 years old. As I walked between the groups of tortoises I fell in love with them! Weird looking creatures, who look miserable and at times vicious, either relaxing in the sun or dragging themselves around the large landscaped area they live in. Brilliant! We were then able to buy some branches of some plant from the keepers that we could feed them with and suddenly realised they could move quite quickly and you could get surprised by several tortoises bearing down on you!!!
After going to see the breeding area (it is also a conservation site as they try to increase the population) and then, rather embarrassingly, witnessing a rather horny tortoise mounting a poor female tortoise we walked around the rest of the park. Again this is another attraction that is planted to enhance the atmosphere of your visit. Just walking through it was a pleasure. There are a few other things to see at the park (including Fruit Bats, a brilliant Insectarium and few more crocodiles) which we did and we headed off pleased to have been. As we walked to the cars the girls noticed some deers and donkeys that are kept in large pens off from the car park (me and Ethan went to find the geocache while they were being all girly!!!).
The drive back to the apartment was along the south coast and we were able to take in the views of the Indian Ocean as the sun set.......
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