Handpicked experience · Chamarel
Chamarel, Mauritius
The coloured dunes re-sort themselves after every downpour, because the minerals in them have different weights and will not remix.
A landscape that reorganises itself after rain
The island's highest fall, arriving in two streams
The last continuous stretch of native forest
Interior country most beach stays never see
A morning route that leaves the afternoon open
Six hours through the south-west of Mauritius by shared coach: the waterfall at Chamarel, the coloured dunes above it, and the drive through the Black River gorges with commentary along the way.
The coloured dunes are not painted, dyed or arranged. They are what is left after basalt lava weathered down over a very long period in a wet tropical climate.
As the rock broke down, its minerals separated. Iron oxides went red and brown; aluminium oxides went blue and purple; the rest fell somewhere between. The important part is what happens next: these oxides have different densities and refuse to remix. Rain runs across the dunes, the particles redistribute, and they settle back out by weight into the same bands they were in before.
That is the genuinely strange thing about the site. Erosion normally blurs and blends. Here it re-sorts, so the stripes reassemble themselves after every downpour, and the surface you photograph is not a preserved relic but a pattern the rain keeps rebuilding.
The Chamarel falls drop around a hundred metres in a single plunge, which makes them the highest on the island, and the river arrives at the lip in two separate streams that fall side by side into the same pool.
The volume varies enormously. After heavy rain the two strands merge into one broad sheet; in a dry spell they thin to ribbons and the basalt cliff behind them becomes the main event. Either version is worth the short walk from the road, but the difference between them is large enough that photographs taken months apart look like different places.
Black River Gorges is the largest protected area on Mauritius and it exists because almost everything else was cleared.
Sugar cultivation took the lowlands and the introduced animals took much of the rest, so the island's native forest survives mainly in these steep valleys where planting was impractical. The rarest birds in the country live in this remnant — species that came within a handful of individuals of disappearing and were pulled back by decades of intensive work. From the lookouts you are seeing the last continuous stretch of what the whole island used to look like.
This is a seat-in-coach tour, so the timings and the stops follow the group rather than your own pace.
The walks are short but the ground at the waterfall viewpoint is uneven and can be slippery after rain. The coloured earth is viewed from a platform and walking on the dunes is not permitted, for reasons the stripes themselves explain. The interior is markedly cooler and wetter than the coast — take a light waterproof, even on a clear morning by the sea.
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What the fare covers, and what to budget for separately.
The practical detail, and the answers people actually ask for.
The name says seven, and counting them honestly is harder than it sounds — the bands shade into one another and the light changes what you can distinguish.
Separated minerals. Iron oxides give the reds and browns, aluminium oxides the blues and purples.
The oxides have different densities and will not remix. Rain redistributes the particles and they settle back out by weight into the same bands.
It rebuilds. Erosion usually blends; here it re-sorts, so the surface is a pattern the rain keeps reassembling rather than a preserved relic.
No. Viewing is from a built platform, for reasons the stripes themselves explain.
Short — a few minutes from where the coach stops to the viewing point, on a made path.
Early, before the group traffic builds and while the light still reaches into the ravine.
Sugar took the lowlands and introduced animals took much of the rest. The native forest held on where the terrain was too steep to plant.