Up at sparrow fart to pack for our room move and to be ready in time for our 7:50am pickup. Groan.

Mini bus debacle with an already packed bus and people not inclined to bunch up . The driver had to sort it out and I ended up squashed into the back seat with Germany. Hopefully I'll get out alive if I don't mention the war.

Driving, driving, driving through endless cane fields. The younger Mauritians may not want to work in the cane fields anymore but sugar is still the main export of Mauritius. The landscape is very picturesque with the mountains rising into the mist (anticyclone clouds) in the distance.

We cut across the middle of the island from west to east to visit the Ile aux Cerfs and took all the minor roads to do it it seemed. It's a good slice of everyday life in Mauritius. Skinny dogs with road sense wandered along the edge of cane fields and footpaths. Now and then there were patches of bananas and other vegetables growing interspersed between village houses, guarded by a few lean chickens.

There's a lot of peeling paint and that blackening you so often see on buildings in tropical countries but overall it appears neat and tidy with people taking pride in their environment . The roads are respectable and there's no piles of rubbish everywhere like there is in Bali or Malaysia.

After about an hour we arrived at the coast and boarded our speedboat to take us to ile aux Cerfs. As we got closer to the island it looked really pretty with clean white sand and beautiful blue water to rival Whitehaven island in the Whitsundays. And then it started to bucket down. Super glad we got here early!

We're troopers though so we sought shelter at the cocktail bar ... at 10:30am. Hey, it's happy hour somewhere in the world right?

The rain stopped about 20mins before we were due to leave so we managed to take a few photos and paddle our feet for a little bit before jumping back on our speedboat.

Next stop was for lunch at the other end of the island. Camp was a tarpaulin under the trees, the kitchen was a bbq and the lunch table was a couple of old doors covered in a colorful table cloth .

Beer, water, coke, beer, rum and beer came out followed by endless baskets of quite tasty garlic bread. Everyone was served a piece of fish with coleslaw. Quite happy I don't eat fish as it looked like a piece of mdf that they'd chucked on the hot plate. I got chicken and coleslaw instead and it was edible at least haha. Desert was a banana split in half, doused with cane syrup, grilled and sprinkled with coconut. Not being a fan of hot banana this was surprisingly tasty.

After lunch we had a couple of hours to wander around this end of the island. The rain stayed away and it was quite pretty with brilliant white sand and that gorgeous blue water.

Last stop was to a waterfall directly into the river. On the way the captain was having fun twisting and turning the boat at speed resulting in many shrieking Germans and a laughing Sherry. I even got to drive for awhile which was cool.

The waterfall was good although we couldn't get very close due to rapids and the amount of debris in the water.

After this we all bundled into the mini bus again for the trip back to Trou aux Biches on the other side of the island. Jeff swapped with me and sat with Germany while I had the front seat next to the driver so could see something this time.

Got our new room keys and still pleased with the new room. Still has a big bath inside and a nice view. Almost identical to the other room, just minus the extra living area and the massive balcony with plunge pool.

As it was our last night here we went for a walk along the shore and then back to our resort to watch the sunset and have a cocktail at the beach bar.

After welcome showers had a nice dinner at our hotel and then crashed.