The central plateau, the island at altitude

Between Port Louis and the south, the road climbs and the island changes climate. The central plateau, where Quatre Bornes, Vacoas and Curepipe run into one another, has no beach, and visitors usually head straight for the hotels on the coast. What it does have is a crater, century-old gardens, planters’ houses and upland forests, and the Metro Express, which links Port Louis to Curepipe, puts it within easy reach of the capital.

The difference can be measured. At the Vacoas station, which stands for the centre of the island in the records of the Mauritius Meteorological Services, the mean maximum for July and August, calculated over the period 1971 to 2000, is only 21.8°C, against 25.8°C in July at Médine, on the west coast. At night, the mean minimum for August falls to 15.1°C. Above all, it rains far more: around 2,000 millimetres a year at Vacoas, against a little under 800 at Médine, with more than 400 millimetres and eighteen days of rain in February. Something warm for the evening and a rain jacket will not go unused.

This climate has a scientific history. It was in 1925 that the meteorological observatory moved from Pamplemousses to Vacoas, where the Mauritius Meteorological Services still has its headquarters. In the 1920s, upper-air winds were already being measured there with kites, then with sounding balloons. Since 2019, a Doppler weather radar has kept watch from the summit of Trou aux Cerfs.

AI-generated image

Curepipe, from crater to garden

Trou aux Cerfs is a dormant volcano on the edge of Curepipe. Its crater opens at an altitude of 605 metres; a small lake fills its floor, and the forest around it mixes native plants and pines. It is thought to have erupted only once, some 700,000 years ago. People come to walk and to look into the distance: from the viewpoint, the eye takes in Rempart Mountain, the Trois Mamelles and the Moka Range.

West of the town, two kilometres from the centre, the Curepipe Botanic Garden covers some twenty-seven acres, about ten hectares, handed over by the government to the town’s commissioners in 1913. Camphor trees and rhododendrons give it its character, but its most precious specimen is a palm, a Hyophorbe amaricaulis, of which the garden holds the only known example in Mauritius. It opens from 6am to 6pm from 1 May to 30 September, and from 7am to 7pm for the rest of the year.

Not far away, in the Forest Side area, the Monvert nature trail crosses a state forest of 73 hectares. Two routes, Bois de Natte and Bois d’Ébène, of 2.8 and 2.5 kilometres, lead to a platform overlooking the canopy, by way of a fernery and an arboretum of more than 150 native or endemic species. The Domaine des Aubineaux, a colonial house built in 1872, is one of the three stops on the Route du Thé, and lunch can be had there.

In town, the Currimjee Arcades house one of Wapalapam’s three addresses, open at lunch and dinner from Monday to Saturday. On Rue Charles Lees, La Potinière, restaurant and caterer, renews every month a menu written in French, on which confit lamb blanquette or chicken chasseur may appear.

The centre of the island also holds one of the oldest golf clubs in the southern hemisphere. At the Gymkhana Club, founded by the British Royal Navy for its officers, golf has been played since 1844, on an eighteen-hole course with six par 3s, short and narrow, that demands precision; a floodlit driving range allows play at night.

In the town of Vacoas-Phoenix, at Phoenix, The Mauritius Glass Gallery works in one hundred per cent recycled glass: you watch the craftsmen blow glassware, objects and works of art, and can leave, if you wish, with a glass cast made from the print of your own hand. Further on, starting from the village of Henrietta, the Seven Cascades, also known as Tamarind Falls, are reached in a quarter of an hour’s walk for the first of them, or in two to three hours over five and a half kilometres; the highest is forty-five metres, and canyoning is practised there.

AI-generated image

Quatre Bornes and the peaks of Moka

Quatre Bornes mainly receives business travellers, in two town hotels. The Palms Hotel, on St Jean Road, has its restaurant on the twelfth floor; the Gold Crest stands on the same road. The shopping centres of La City Trianon and Phoenix Mall are served by the Metro Express. At Ébène, the Hennessy Park Hotel, in the heart of Cybercity, has made contemporary Mauritian art its signature.

To the north of the plateau, the Moka Range draws the horizon. Le Pouce, the island’s third-highest peak, is climbed in three to four hours there and back by a marked path, the last stretch using your hands; Charles Darwin reached its summit in 1836, and the view plunges down onto Port Louis. Pieter Both, the island’s second-highest peak, recognisable by the rock that crowns it and that many liken to a head, should be attempted only with a professional guide and the right equipment, starting from La Laura.

At Moka, Eureka, a house commissioned around 1836 and built of ebony and mahogany, has 109 doors and windows; it is visited with a guide, among gardens, greenhouses and waterfalls. On the Bois Chéri road, the Escale Créole table d’hôtes serves, at lunchtime only and by reservation, the traditional Creole meal of several courses.