A Tropical Paradise

And it was on to Mauritius... I figured that after the mountains I could cope with a month on a tropical island in the middle of the Indian Ocean!

Jess and I decided to splash out slightly for this placement, and rented a villa for the month in Grande Baie right up in the north of the island – it has air con and our own pool! The pool is literally about 5 metres from the front door... which is rather nice in the 30 degree heat!

Arriving in Mauritius felt almost like returning to 'civilisation' after the subcontinent. Hardly anyone was beeping their horns, pedestrian crossings and traffic lights actually seem to mean something, and there's a supermarket! Like a proper supermarket with trolleys and everything. The supermarket itself – the Super U – has pretty much everything possible. It's like a cross between Coles, Big W, a bookshop/newsagent and a patisserie! And because so much is imported here, there's a lot of familiar brands on the shelves – it was very exciting to be able to buy barbeque shapes and Bega cheese – as well as a lot of stuff where all the writing is in French or Hindi.

The main pull of a tropical island is the beach though. To be honest, the beaches themselves aren't anything particularly amazing, but the scenery and the warmth of the water more than make up for it. It's awesome to be able to be at the beach at 5 in the afternoon and the water still seem like you're getting into a bath! There's some great beaches up and down the coast from where we are staying, but last weekend we went out to the Isle aux Cerfs by a speedboat – it's a whole island of beaches! The water was gorgeous and warm and so clear and perfectly turquoise, and we had a bbq lunch right on the beach. We also took the opportunity to go parasailing, which was soo much fun, and we could see all the way over the island and out over the ocean to the east – couldn't quite see Perth though.

The next day we headed in a different direction down to the south of the island to the Black River Gorges National Park. Our taxi driver from the airport had hooked us up with a guide – Gavin – and we spent the day hiking through the park. It was a very good thing that he didn't tell us exactly how far we were going to be walking that day before we started...

We started off at the Sept Cascades/Seven Waterfalls near Henrietta – a series of waterfalls surrounded by rainforest. To get down close to the water we walked/scrambled/climbed/fell down a very steep track, assisted by the conveniently strong and smooth trees on either side. The view from the bottom was astounding, looking up at the waterfalls coming down, and looking out toward the west coast throuh the forest-covered valley. Of course, having come down we needed to get back up to the top... It was extremely steep, but in short bursts between each waterfall, so we survived (mainly). There were a few precarious moments though! About halfway up Gavin took our backpacks, scrambled up a tree and deposited them on a rock, came back down and informed us that we would have to do the next part one by one... So I ended up halfway up a tree, looking across a gap to a rock face that I would have to grab onto and climb across to where the next pool was. Problem was, the gap seemed bigger than my legs are long! Gavin assured me that I could reach, but I think I could be forgiven for being a bit apprehensive when it comes to letting go of something secure to cling onto relatively little on the other side! But I did reach, and I did hang on, and I didn't plummet to the ground, and I got to the top and got the hugest adrenaline rush – even more than the parasailing the day before! From there we got up to the main waterfall, with a drop of 75 metres, and a pool that was deep enough to swim in. It was cold water – a bit of a shock to the system after the warm water that we've become used to – but still warmer than a Tassie beach I reckon! It was very cool to be swimming under a waterfall! After drying off, we climbed and scrambled and eventually got back up to the top of the valley, and headed on to Black River.

The track to Black River meandered along the crest of the hills around the next valley, passing through a surprising amount of different environs – lakes, farmland, pine forest, rain forest, red dirt and areas that looked just like home! The downhill stretch down to the Black River itself was responsible for most of the side-effects I think – clearly whoever built the track didn't believe in reducing the angles by cutting back and forth across the hill, but just went straight down instead, resulting in some steep steps and jumps from rock to rock. We definitely felt our feet and legs for the next couple days... which necessitated much lounging around by the pool! Life is tough in Mauritius...