Port-Louis

Wednesday is consecrated as our Family Day Out and following complaints from a daughter last week that we were going to the beach at Ste Anne again we decided to head for a new beach this week. This time I selected my favourite, Port Louis, on the north part of Grande Terre, and we invited Bertie's SIL and their nephew and niece as well as his Tatie and his sister's friend, so we were quite a good sized party.

Last week we went to Ste Anne and realised on arrival that we had forgotten the sun tan lotion (I suffered for 5 days!) and the water to rinse ourselves afterwards so we paid great attention to our packing this week...and arrived to realise we had forgotten the carefully packed sandwiches! Fortunately Bertie's sister was well supplied!

Here are some web photos to show you how beautiful it is there - I just discovered the beach is called Plage du Souffleur - as ever click on them to find where they originate from.

Generally, the sea really is that blue and the sand that white. However, yesterday was not the brightest of days. As we sat on the beach we could see the rain falling on our home town across the sea, and whilst we didn't get any rain ourselves, it was a lot cooler than normal, with much bigger waves than we are used to. Well, Ste Anne has no waves, so they came as a bit of a shock to the girls! LissaLou was moaning and demanding to leave within minutes, but in that wonderful way kids have, she went off to play with her cousin Stella, and had a fantastic time. By the end, the sun had come out and she didn't want to leave the water!

We took Baby JoJo in but between his obsession with drinking the sea water from his floater, and the waves popping over his head, he took in plenty of salt! Then we propped him up in his Bumbo to watch us all and he started leaning over and tilted the whole thing over - luckily Bertie noticed he was upside down!

We also had great fun covering our little nephew in sand up to his neck - perhaps I will get the photo from my SIL.

The beach was absolutely deserted which was very pleasant (the €2 car park fee may have something to do with it?) and they provide huts with tables and benches all along the sand so it is a much more sophisticated way of picknicking! On the down side though there are a lot of mosquitoes and other biting things there.

It was lovely driving through Grande Terre to get there - this is sugar cane countryside and you can see the remaining fields all along the route. Bertie as ever told me of how the island used to be covered in cane and there were five working factories when he was a boy (his grandpa worked for one) now there is only one and all the fields are rapidly turning into construction after construction. I feel his loss, then wonder at islands being dedicated to producing something that rots your teeth...