Regrettably, we didn’t have a lot of time to spend in Mauritius. We aren’t the beach holiday type (nor would we travel all the way from Australia to Mauritius simply for a beach) so we had to have a well organized plan to decided on what kind of transport we needed. The main purpose of the trip was to see the Echo Parakeets in Black River Gorges National Park. The hotel we stayed at (on points of course) was the nearest points option to BRGNP, the Mauritius Hilton at Flic en Flac. I also wanted to squeeze in a quick visit to the Casela Bird Park and the 7 Coloured Sands at Chamarel.
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RENTAL CARS
With such a short amount of time, only a rental car would do. The one thing I found frustrating is that the majors – Hertz, Avis, etc only seemed to have manual transmissions at a reasonable cost. I can only drive an automatic, especially if I will be driving through towns. The best option was going through a rental car consolidator which had more options with smaller car hire companies that offered automatics at reasonable prices. I checked 3 options – Expedia, Holiday Autos & DriveAway. All prices for these examples are in Australian dollars but if you do a quote, it will default to your own currency.
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Holiday Autos had the best price back then just as they do now so I booked with them for First since it was the better deal for a better car. The rate includes excess up to 15,000 MUR which is around $450 USD or $500 AUD and this amount was covered by my travel insurance policy. Always check before booking a rental car what the insurance covers and what the excess is!
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Here’s the actual car. As usual, I did a full inspection and made sure the employee knew I was doing it. It did take a while for them to fetch the car from their depot in town and we had to sit there and wait. I had given my flight number and they have a display on flight times in the office which is shared by all car hire companies so they could have been more proactive in getting the car there on time to meet the flight. I returned it a bit early and once again did the inspection, got the final receipt and had no issues while returning it so First was a good choice for me!
LOCAL BUSES
Traveling by local buses can be fun, is usually the cheapest option and a good way to meet the locals. Mauritius does have a large bus network and if you have plenty of time to spare and not so much money, this could be a good option for you.
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With so much to see in such a short time, there was no way this was going to work! Here is an example for a route from near the airport to Flic en Flac (not the Hilton, just the town center).
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TAXIS, TRANSFERS & TOUR BUSES
Just like any other country, Mauritius offers all of the above – at a price of course! We didn’t use any of these options so I can’t really comment on them. When you arrive at the airport, there are brochures with tour ads so you can call them directly or book through your hotel. When we were at Chamarel, there were lots of tour buses there so obviously lots of people do use this option.
Scenes from the road between the airport and Casela Bird Park.
All things considered, I was happy with my choice of rental car as the best means of transport in Mauritius.