After having spent the earlier half of the day at Eau Bleue, and since I was officially hiking La Tourelle du Tamarin mountain the coming Sunday I decided to spend a few hours gathering info on the path to the mountain. As the access is found in a morcellement with quite some ambiguous roads my reason was sustained to find the exact route so as not to waste time on the official attempt. Being on my motorbike I could easily manage to turn around as I wanted without any hassle and it happened a couple of times before I could locate the exact road and track.
I managed to find the exact route near the water tank (as mentioned and tracked here) without much fuss. I checked the location and since it was still a little early, I decided to follow the path to the top, without the intention to reach the top though, only some ‘reconnaissance’. Before mentioning anything else, I want to clarify that this blog post will be split in two parts, the one I did for the path findings and the continuation of the actual hike the next Sunday.
I started following the path and attempting the climb slowly and slowly as I was already much tired without a good night’s sleep and the earlier activity at Eau Bleue. The path followed along the fence between the Morcellement and the mountain foot edge for some 15 minutes and later on ended at a stream-like path. I believe on rainy days this is where the water runs down. At the time I was ascending it was very sunny and dry, the soil was soft and slippery and the heat made things harder. I followed the stream-like path to a much gentle slope where the rest of the path was clearly defined by the sentry that lead to the top.
I kept going forward for some 500 meters more and reached a good viewing point towards the village of Tamarin. At the same time at this spot two ‘paille-en-queue’ birds were strolling around me as if I was invading their space. I managed to take a few shots of the action and proceeded further. I took some rest at various other locations and did some shots as well.
It was around 3pm when I reached the part where the track took a different aspect of serious climbing for the final part and this is where I stopped for this ‘reconnaissance’ journey. When I looked at the gps track, I was at 2/3 of the complete trail. I climbed back and in 30 minutes I was already down and on my way back.
Back on the Mountain
The coming Sunday, with my faithful hiking friend Idriss, we started again at the water tank and climbed rather easily towards the top. After some 45 minutes we arrived at the area I stopped the other day and we tackled this part together. Unfortunately, on this day there were strong winds from the east side and this slowed us down a little. At certain places we found old ropes to help ascend further and some 30 minutes later we reached the top!!
Big smiles on our faces as we contemplated the magnificent view on this part of the island, with Le Morne Mountain standing majestically right there over a blue turquoise lagoon and the Black River Bay looking busy with all these small boats. On the other side the Bay of Tamarin in its glory with the surfers waiting for the right waves at a distance and the salt pans waiting to be taken over by future business scapes. The hotels of Wolmar and Flic en flac could be seen as well and all these offered such a scenic view of the west side of the island. For sure, this was the best view of all hikes I’ve attempted so far.
Spending some time to rest and take a lot of pictures, some distant clouds were approaching and we started to feel a few droplets of rain on our skin. It was probably just a quick passage, but it was also time for us to start our climb down. An hour later we were already at the water tank and on our way back home.
At the end of the day it was a great climb and I would rate this hike of Medium level. Our next attempt… probably the Trois Mamelles mountain.
The Whereabouts
You can download this map by clicking on ‘View Larger Map’ and ‘Download KML’.
UPDATE: 09/APR/18
After attempting this mountain lately, there seems to be a change in track, the old track being blocked, and the path redirected differently. The new path is more tedious and demanding. Good luck 🙂
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