Crepes and chocolate croissants for breakfast. Love the French style.

A day out with Kunal's son Yash driving us today .
First we visited the Black River Gorges NP to view Alexandra falls. Very nice outlook over the valley down to the sea. And if you don't believe me just ask the 10,000 school children who were also there.

After a beautiful sunny day yesterday, today the weather was getting its Melbourne groove on and was a bit four seasons in one day. Eg. Sunny on the drive to the waterfall. Rained while we were there. Sunny again when we drove away. Ngoh.

Next stop was another viewpoint over the Black River Gorge itself and another waterfall. Surprised to see a couple of monkeys here - Mum, Dad and a cute little baby. Dad kept walking back and forth along the viewing platform and snarling at anyone who came too close. Shithead monkey.

Saw many local Mauritians stopped along the road picking fruit. We stopped and Yash picked some for us to try. Jeff loved it but oh my god it was so sour! I choked down the bite I took and that was enough for me. Strangely after eating it, it leaves a sweet taste in your mouth.

Yash cadged some chilli powder from a vendor and put this on the fruit. Jeff said it was even yummier then. He really loved them and ate all that Yash had picked. Jeff also chowed down on another pineapple sprinkled with chilli powder. Something wrong with that boy.

Next we visited the Bois Cherie tea factory where we looked through the museum and tried some of their many different types of tea . It's the first time I've seen a spittoon for a tea tasting!

We tried: Cardamom, Coconut-vanilla. Exotic fruits, Rooibos, Black with vanilla, Ayapana (gross), Lemongrass ginger, and back to Vanilla with milk (the best).

Jeff's anal side came out with his Sheldon-ish arrangement of the tea boxes in a colour spectrum. It did look cool though.

Next we were off to the village of Charmarel - the coloured earths - down a road which Yash warned us had 58 hairpin bends. After Cilaos in Reunion with its 400 bends we laughed at this. Mwah haa haa!

We "thought" we were going to the coloured earth valley first, but Yash took us to the Rhum factory .... where we quickly became schnickered due to the 9 x 40% proof shots we had. After this we didn't really give two hoots about seeing anything else as long as we had RHUM!!!

After hearing that the guys next to us were Czech, we shouted "Naz dra vi" ("Cheers" in Cech) ... and then we were best friends with all of them!
 
After spending more than we should in the gift shop (hello Rhum!) we took up their offer to have some crepes to "soak up the Rhum" ... but then ... oh cocktails for only RS 50 (AUD2.00) ... sure why not!!

So truly devastatingly schnickered at this stage and speaking the best French we have uttered in 2 weeks (or so we think) and really could not care less if we see the coloured earth today or not . (This was written under influence of RHUM!!!)

After 3 hours we staggered out to the carpark to find Yash laughing at us and told him "bugger the coloured earth, just take us for a drive along the coast" so we ended up driving south along the coast towards Le Morne (the big rock at the far south of Mauritius) all the while teasing Yash about his 5 girlfriends and telling him to come to Australia and have some Aussie girlfriends. He is 21 and his Dad wants him to get married. Poor guy. 

Understandably, he seems more interested in coming to Perth and working with his cousin at Crown! Maybe he'll pick up another 5 girlfriends!

We stopped off along the coast at a place where there's an island of lava, just across a small channel of water off the beach. Jeff & Yash thought it would be an awesome idea to jump across the rocks & go out to the island. Slippery rocks and a head full of rum ... yeah, what could possibly go wrong?

Well, about halfway across, Jeff slipped on one of those slippery rocks (who would have thought?) and promptly fell into the ocean, dunking his camera as well . Fortunately for him and the camera, the water was only about 15cm deep ... but he still managed to whack his hand on the rock quite severely, which resulted in bandages when we got back to the resort (on his hand, not the rock). Maybe it was Jeff's whining or maybe she's just super-cautious, but the first reaction of the nurse at the hotel was to recommend an x-ray!  

Ended the day with a nice drive along the coast as the sun set. Feeling chilled and happy. Will be sad to leave Mauritius tomorrow.

We got cleaned up, rested for a little while, then met Nadine & Ray for dinner. Jeff met Nadine when he was here last time as she attended the course he ran. We had a great time chatting with them & they're both so lovely & friendly. It was a fantastic way to spend our last night in Mauritius.