Our second Pressure Zone was the stretch of the east coast usually referred to as Palmar or Bellemare.  Whilst not where the earliest set of hotels had been developed on Mauritius, it was certainly…

The meals at Cotton Bay were not brilliant, though they did have some signature seafood dishes, and I was glad of a cold Phoenix after the rollercoaster travels I had come through in the last coupl…

Jullan took me out on another trip one weekend.  Ostensibly to check the sediment in the rivers, it was really just an excuse for him to drive the van and me to see the country.  We went up and dow…

The next day, Jeremy and I worked with SHOALS to show them how to survey the marine resources.  We met them at their shed in Port Mathurin and drove back close to Cotton Bay where we hooked up with…

I awoke the next morning very early, from a combination of cold, excitement at getting ready for the road, and also a comradely fascination in seeing another scientist at work.  I wrapped myself up…

Jamestown is that lovely mix of small town everydayness and the realisation that it is the outward face of St Helena, its capital as well as main port.  Everyone has to pass up the narrow main stre…

We had to do some field work in Bequia one day.  Unfortunately, the swell increased dramatically in the early part of the week, and by the time we were ready to set off, there were heavy rollers ou…

Next morning was our major day.  We aimed to head for the high Drakensberg come hell or high water, and as I burst out of our tent, disturbing a flock of guinea fowl looking for pickings, the weath…

The ferry to Rodrigues takes 36 hours from Port Louis to the capital, Port Mathurin and goes a couple of times a week.  The plane takes ninety minutes and with only 50 seats each time there are onl…

 It does not matter how exotic the location, within a couple of days everything becomes familiar and routine rules the whole day.  I was not the only one.  While working away at the locust centre, …

 The most beautiful building in Nouakchott was outside my bedroom window.  The Central Mosque, one of two major mosques in the city, was not made out of the nearly ubiquitous concrete, but a warm r…

We entered the park and set up camp.  The day was only half way through, so we had time to walk.  We decided to head for the Cave to the north west.  The hike was exhilarating.  Mostly through open…

Jeremy had not been on the original project team  – indeed I did not know of his existence when I had been here for the first two months.  Our original survey expert had not been able to go t…

 I suppose it is not very tactful of me to be flown eight thousand miles to the far side of the world, be wined and dined by my counterparts, and given an exclusive tour of the countryside around t…

 Go to the first post for Adam’s Peak Despite seeing the mountain in the distance, we were still about twelve miles from it, and we had to take a circuitous route around a dam before we got t…

Our second Pressure Zone was the stretch of the east coast usually referred to as Palmar or Bellemare.  Whilst not where the earliest set of hotels had been developed on Mauritius, it was certainly…

The push was to continue the expansion of Mauritius’ prime export product, high quality resort hotels.  The traditional resorts had already filled up the prime spots – the coast between Port Louis …

More than anywhere else in Mauritius, the Morne is a corner of the coastline, moving from the calm protected lagoons of the west coast to the harsher but more ruggedly beautiful south coast.  As it…

Of all the birds that graced our humble abode in Calodyne, my favourite by far was the bulbul.  Although common in Mauritius and elsewhere, it has such a distinctive shape and wonderful voice that …

Diana’s Peaks perch higher than most of the island, but so much of the inhabited area is on a high plateau studded with more ridges and pointed or flat hilltops.  To the south west of the nat…

There were three or four roads that led out of the northern plains from here, all crossed a rough rocky plain that could hardly sustain cane fields, indeed in some places they never bothered and it…

At the back of the hall, temporary stalls had been set up by the Ministry of Agriculture to display farm animals.  Various schools had brought their boys and girls in smart uniforms to take a look …

The land opened out again as we neared the coast and a sprawling, dilapidated city came into view.  This was Buenaventura.  After the Amazon rainforest and the loneliness of Darien, this was the wi…

And of course, from this point you could see miles and miles of ocean with nothing else to break the view.  For most of my time on St Helena it was like the people cut themselves off from the sea, …

Interestingly some of the other birds learnt from this too; some of the more confident sparrows would hop over and take bread from your hand, some would flutter in but often they were too clumsy to…

We inadvertently sent some of the world of La Gaullette into the sheltered world of the Mauritian tourist.  We completed the walk at a long concrete jetty near Case Noyale and caught a local bus ba…

Our work on the coast at Belle Mare and Palmar was split in a similar way to before – trips in the lagoon to look at the coral reef and seagrass beds, and walking the coast to look at defences and …

But it was still not true safari – it was a hike.  So one night we clocked off early and with a couple of Robin’s friends who had just survived two long haul flights from the States via London, we …

 The point has probably been overstressed, but from that visit to Taylors in the mountains, we had a wonderful time.  The bus ride back to Lamego, the next day where we did our individual projects,…

I drove back to Kent the next morning and took the next evening’s flight to Mauritius.  In theory I had about four hours before my Rodrigues flight, plenty of time to get through the queues at immi…

The land opened out again as we neared the coast and a sprawling, dilapidated city came into view.  This was Buenaventura.  After the Amazon rainforest and the loneliness of Darien, this was the wi…

 For the first few days I found it hard to take in the way the Tongan’s lived.  There was the appreciation that they lived in simple huts or rondavels, and had small cleared areas within which much…

I dropped in to Kingstown a few times during this contract and it gave me a chance to explore both the city and the country more deeply.  There is a habit on my kind of work that you are always thi…

We were met with a scene from the Marie Celeste.  The tents were there and we saw the guys’ personal belongings strewn around; we saw fisheries and boat gear everywhere; upturned pirogues and…

As is always inevitable, we had to turn for home.  We could not see St Lucia across the channel – the haze was still too much, but it did clear as we headed back down the Windward Highway.  We stop…

I drove on along the escarpment edge to another incredible waterfall, the Berlin Falls.  Just beyond here, just before you bore yourself with another waterfall and gorges, South Africa springs anot…

One evening we had finished early enough I decided I needed some exercise.  I had been trooping around with the trainees but the walks were short and there was a lot of time just standing round exp…

Just to show how useful it is to look-see again, we were surprised by the little headland that separates the bay into two places- making the water look like a pair of tonsils on the map.  Rather th…

At the main entrance to Dambulla, I had to pay my tourist fee; Weerisinghe, as a Sinhalese was free to enter.  Of course we had to leave our shoes at the entrance.  Once inside, we ambled around th…

Ould Babah’s three tortoises never looked happy.  Day after day we walked into the locust compound in Nouakchott, Mauritania, past the little grassy area in the centre whey they resided.  Usually t…

This was not the only time I came up to Plantation House.  Other times I had an appointment with a much more aged inhabitant than the governor.  Out on the grassy meadow below Plantation House live…