All for me grog!

A hot and humid afternoon, perhaps not the best time to go tasting rum, but it was a mile or so up the road so we thought we'd give it a go. Chamarel Rhumerie is in a beautiful setting with fine manicured lawns and perfumed gardens - I thought this photo came out quite well! The rum itself came in tiny tots but we had several of them and were a bit woozy on the walk back. I thought the various flavoured rums were a bit on the sweet side and I can't really enthuse about them, however their double distilled white rum was something special, quite different to Bacardi!

Almost Race Day

I'm not running up that!

The big race tomorrow and we are thankful that this is not the final peak that we have to climb for the  Dodo Trail Race - this is one of the views from the starting point of tomorrow morning's jaunt. The final peak is in the other direction - just as high but not as spikey. We signed in this morning at a well organised race HQ - 750 runners in total at the three distances. Last year's winner of the 50K race was Ricky Lightfoot from Cumbria and he's down on the list again. I've settled for the 25K event which has 1500 metres of climb much of it on trails covered in tree roots and other debris.

Off we go!

And by way of a warm up.on Monday we decided a bike ride was in order. This took us down to the Seven Coloured Earth site which was described earlier - here we are passing between sugar cane fields on our way back. These appear to be quiet country lanes but every so often an ancient bus with a smoking exhaust pipe or a mad Mauritian taxi will come hurtling round a corner on the wrong side of the road. So it was with a sigh of relief that we cut off the road and pulled into the service road at the back of our hotel.

Now this won't hurt.

And then disaster struck - I tried to avoid a large puddle by skirting to the side of the gravel track and my front wheel gave way sliding off to the side - I slid forward on my knees and ended up in the local clinic! The gravel of the track was collected from a stony beach and comprised small lumps of dead coral. Coral, as divers on reefs know full well, can be extremely abrasive and therefore this mishap meant that my knees were well and truly shredded. This particular doctor (who attended to me the second we came through the door!) was accompanied by a no nonsense nurse who was quite handy with a scalpel, cutting away loose skin in order to clean out gravel from underneath. All in all an interesting day we thought! The challenge now of course was to cosset the wound carefully such that I could run on Sunday, large quantities of betadene and iodine were employed to try to avoid infection and, after today's careful examination the decision is to go ahead and go for it!

What to see in Mauritius

Perhaps if I jump a bit higher?

This big fellow is in the park at a tourist attraction called the Seven Coloured Earths. He (or she) is one of several giant tortoises on Mauritius. The original giant tortoises died out at the same time as the Dodo (Oh those hungry sailors! Did they realise what they were doing?) This gang of dipsochelys gigantea were imported from the Seychelles in the 1880's. They were sitting/lying down in a group contentedly munching away when one of them lurched to its feet and raced across to these stumps to see if any had fallen over.

Who left this mess?

The Seven Coloured Earths is a small area of sand dunes in the middle of nowhere which are somewhat of a mystery. Nothing will grow on them and despite the area's torrential rains they don't wear down. The key feature though is the stripey pattern consisting of seven different colours - this photo doesn't really do it justice. A range of different coloured ions give rise to the colours which separate again even when mixed together. What a great opportunity for a chemistry school field trip!
 

Is it a bird, is it a plane?

Finally something which I thought was a bird at first - this is the Mauritian Flying Fox  a fruit bat or megabat with a wingspan of around a metre. Most bats only fly at night but you can see these guys throughout the day. Interestingly fruit bats have lost their ability to find their way around using echo location. This photo doesn't show it clearly but there's a tiny Garmin attached to this chap's right shoulder.

Show me the way to Port Louis

Yes we have some bananas!

The capital of Mauritius is a busy town called Port Louis. Everybody speaks French over here but curiously they all pronounce the 's' at the end of Louis. One of the sights to see is 'The Markets' - this is a little bit Asian and a little bit African with lots of interesting fruit and veg and all sorts of souvenirs including Dodos. There are wood carvings of Dodos, pottery figures of Dodos, Dodo table cloths, you name it it's got a Dodo on it. And bananas - this stall had quite a variety of different types of bananas - we like the small yellow fleshed sweet tasty ones!

Can you see what I see?

Port Louis traffic was fairly thick - around 5 pm, the centre seemed totally grid locked. However we got back in the car about 5.30 pm to find the traffic moving freely again. This was rather helpful as we had then to follow some rather vague directions in our search for the Flying Dodo. In the town centre there's a small park planted many years ago with Banyan trees (ficus bengalensis). They've grown a bit since then as you can see. This particular tourist was clearly intoxicated with the view!

Good ale is not extinct.

And here's the Flying Dodo. Having limited ourselves to the local Phoenix beer for a few days (mainly because there was nothing else on offer) it was a pleasant surprise to find the Lambic Restaurant, one of two outlets for the products of the Flying Dodo microbrewery. Not very well signposted, we drove past it on the one way system without spotting it first time round. However once inside we found a handpump with a Fuller's London Pride clip on it. This was just for show and therefore we sampled a pint of the Flying Dodo Blonde Ale; just the one as we didn't want to become intoxicated at this early hour.

Running in the Indian Ocean

Hot news off the press. All three of our gallant visitors to Mauritius stood on the podium this morning. In the 10K Vicky was first lady in her class and won a gold medal and Lyndall was 3rd senior lady winning a bronzie. Martin completed the half marathon in testing conditions and finished 2nd V60 in 1,47.13. Photos to follow!

She's a winner!

And here she is standing on the podium - first V60 lady at the Mauritius 10K holding up her prize - a fresh pineapple. She failed to hear her name being read out on the tannoy because she just wasn't expecting a placing (modest to herself as usual). She also won a nice little gold medal as a memorable souvenir together with the bright red running vest which will soon be seen round the parkruns of North Wales and Cheshire. Not only was it hot and hilly but the second half was straight into a fairly stiff sea breeze. To add to that we were virtually just off the plane after a 12 hour flight so a very respectable time indeed! The pineapple was flambed by the chef at our hotel that evening - very tasty.

Pictured below are the silver and bronze medallists enjoying their brief moments of glory!

We should have tripped you up!

My legs are longest.

Dangerous wildlife in Mauritius

First day in Mauritius and found one of these huge things crossing our path on the way down to breakfast! Achatina Fulica, to give it it's Latin name, is the second largest snail in the world and was introduced by accident to Mauritius over 100 years ago. It seems that this species can harbour a nematode which can give humans a form of meningitis and can also kill dogs. This one was about 8 inches long.

Danger - I can kill dogs!

On yer bike!

Here's where the blog goes a bit bikey - having been a runner for many decades and only looking at cycling as a means to get from A to B, I have now started to get more enthusiastic about the pleasures of cycling. This is the Dawes Audax Giro - a fine vintage touring bike which has carried me round the lanes for the last few years. Probably indestructable it goes fairly well but the brakes and gears leave a lot to be desired. It also rattles and shakes so on any longish ride it's a bit jarring and uncomfortable even with the padded shorts and padded saddle cover. Still it's put in some good service.

And this is the shiny red one - a Fuji Sportif, sportive or sportif is a flash continental term for a touring bike and this one's fairly sturdy (note the mudguards.) The man in the shop spent ages talking about the relative benefits of disc brakes and Shimano whatsits and trying to sell me top of the range Cannondales and Specializeds and so on, but in the end I just said I'll take the red one! I've put the padded seat cover on and am just about to do 50 or so miles on a pleasantish Sunday afternoon. A few weeks ago I'd have struggled with half that distance but we're building it up to a big one. (LEJOG!) Not that I'm losing interest in running or anything like that but last weekend's Fairy Freckled Cow trail race was a bit painful as you can see from the following photo. Vicky took this about half a mile from the end when I was rapidly running out of steam in part due to a wicked tumble which saw me splattered on the ground. In fact no one saw me as at that stage I was well ahead of the next runner on a isolated part of the course. I staggered to my feet expecting hordes of runners to whiz past but in fact nobody appeared. What had seemed like several minutes must have been just seconds - I got going again and managed to stop my fast finishing clubmate Fred Jones from beating me to win an excellent bottle of beer for finishing in first V60 position.

N