Mauritius and

Reunion Island Trip

Mauritius and Reunion Island Trip

‘Baguettes’, ‘beauty’ and ‘babouks’. These three words sum up our trip quite well. We seemed to eat a lot of baguettes, including the famous soggy ones during our hike (see below), the scenery on both Mauritius and Reunion is extremely beautiful, so much so that you start to become oblivious to the lush, green, mountainous landscape after a while. ‘Babouks’, the scary-looking but harmless local spiders, became the one creole word we all seemed to learn and represented everything new, different and exciting about these exotic, culturally-diverse islands.

The hardest part of our trip seemed to be leaving Australia. A gate change at Tullamarine became a flight delay to Perth became a rush for our connecting flight to Mauritius and a big sigh of relief. Our fortunes improved once we arrived at our beachside hotel in Mauritius with its all-you-can-eat delicious buffet and comfy, clean rooms.

We spent our days in Mauritius visiting a tea factory and sampling tea, eating delicious French and Mauritian food, paying homage to Matthew Flinders at a statue dedicated to him, haggling at a market, splashing in the hotel pool, walking in the local gardens and along the beach, learning about the Hindu faith and visiting l’Aventure du Sucre, a museum dedicated to the sugar plantations and the slaves forced to work on them until the 1830s. We also got to catch up with Madame Pacifique, her parents and baby Raphaël!

After a very short, incident-free flight to Reunion, we were met by our host families at the airport. Two weeks of generous hospitality, new friends, a different school system and discovering the French, Indian, African and Chinese cultures that have created the Reunion Island lifestyle were to follow. We discovered the volcanic, mountainous, forested landscape (sometimes in the rain, see below), did a tad of shopping in the capital city, visited the oldest mosque in France with the imam, saw dolphins, explored a museum about volcanoes, went on a hike, toured an elegant colonial house and its gardens and learnt all about the coconut and vanilla industries.

Each morning we arrived at school before 7.20 am (yes, that’s the time classes start!) and we gave a presentation about Australia in English classes, had conversations in French and English with local students, sat in on all manner of other classes, ate at the canteen or café and left at …. 4 or 5pm!

Yes, the days were long, but somehow the trip seemed short!

Here are a few reflections from some of the students and a teacher (merci, Madame Carr) who went on the trip!

Cassie: I loved how my family really made me feel part of theirs. I also really enjoyed going into English classes and getting to know all the different students.

Neve: The highlight of the trip for me was visiting the Gîte de Bélouve. It was great to get a change of scenery and spend more time with everyone on the trip.

Grace: When I met the family that was really nice and the food was great.

Lily: My highlight of the trip was the hike we did. I absolutely hated it and loved it at the same time. We went on a four-hour hike (2 hours each way) to go see a waterfall. About 20 minutes in it started pouring rain and did not stop for the rest of the hike. I loved it because we all got very close as friends.

Gemma: The dolphins were incredible to see. The boat ride was so much fun with everybody sleeping, laughing and getting saturated.

Devon: The Mauritius market and the haggling part of that; that was a good experience.

Kiara: Eating baguettes in the rain at a waterfall we couldn’t see.

Mme Carr: Their generosity of spirit and opening up their homes and family life to me was humbling. Be careful what you wish for because they listen and then it appears.

Mr Michael Keast

French Language Teacher