Walk Around Mauritius – Day 01 | Grand Baie to Melville (34.5 km)

Walk Around Mauritius – Episode 1 Grand Baie (Beach House Restaurant) → Melville Public Beach ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 📍 34.52 km | ⏱ 5 hours 40 minutes | 🧭 Northern Coastline ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ The journey begins. Two women. Two pairs of legs. 274.6 kilometres of Mauritian coastline to walk — and a cause worth every blister. We're Mandy Martin and Belinda Du Preez — two South African women, both proudly over 50, who've made Mauritius home. In Episode 1, we set off from the Beach House Restaurant in Grand Baie, tracing the stunning northern coast through Pereybere's turquoise waters, past the iconic red-roof church at Cap Malheureux, through the peaceful lagoons of Anse La Raie and the fishing villages of Calodyne and Grand Gaube, before arriving at Melville Public Beach as the sun dropped low. It's a beautiful coastline. But beneath it, Mauritius is facing a quiet crisis — widespread animal cruelty, neglect, and an overwhelming stray population that a small group of dedicated locals and expats fight to address every single day, entirely on donations and willpower. With local funding drying up and government support almost nonexistent, these NGOs are stretched to breaking point. That's why we're walking. Every kilometre raises awareness. Every donation funds veterinary care, sterilisations, rescues, and the daily essentials that keep animals alive and shelters running. We're also walking for women's health — because Belinda knows firsthand, as a cancer survivor, that strength has nothing to do with age. This is Day 1 of 11. The legs are fresh. The cause is real. Let's go. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ✨ EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🏝️ Starting our epic 274.6 km challenge at Grand Baie Beach House 🌊 Turquoise waters of Pereybere Beach ⛪ The world-famous Cap Malheureux red-roof church 🎣 Scenic lagoons and local fishing life at Anse La Raie 🏘️ Charming fishing villages of Calodyne and Grand Gaube 🌅 Arriving at Melville Public Beach as the sun goes down ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🐾 WHY WE'RE WALKING ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Mauritius is renowned for its breathtaking beaches and lush landscapes — but beneath its beauty lies a heartbreaking reality. The island is struggling with severe animal cruelty, neglect, and a devastating overpopulation crisis. The Mauritian government offers limited support, and a small yet dedicated group of locals and expats are fighting every day to save countless animals, relying entirely on private donations and volunteer efforts. Every donation — no matter the size — goes directly toward veterinary care, sterilisation projects, rescues, and daily essentials for the animals who need it most. We're also walking for women's health. Because Belinda knows firsthand, as a cancer survivor, that strength has nothing to do with age. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 💛 SUPPORT THE CAUSE ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 💰 Donate here: https://gogetfunding.com/walk-around-mauri... 📘 Follow us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61... ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 👣 ABOUT US ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🎒 Mandy Martin — Outdoor adventurer, marathon runner & founder of Moo Bags, locally handmade eco-friendly bags. → https://moobags.mu/ 🌿 Belinda Du Preez — Cancer survivor, holistic health consultant & Mauritius's highest-rated reflexologist. → https://footlove.mu/ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 📺 FULL ROUTE – 274.6 KM OVER 11 DAYS ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Day 01 – Beach House → Grand Gaube (20.56 km) ✅ Day 02 – Grand Gaube → Roches Noires (25 km) Day 03 – Poste Lafayette → Belle Mare (23.15 km) Day 04 – Belle Mare → Trou d'Eau Douce (23.14 km) Day 05 – Trou d'Eau Douce → Mahebourg (23.42 km) Day 06 – Mahebourg → Surinam (27.89 km) Day 07 – Surinam → Bel Ombre (25.50 km) Day 08 – Bel Ombre → La Gaulette (29.02 km) Day 09 – La Gaulette → Flic-en-Flac (24.16 km) Day 10 – Flic-en-Flac → Port Louis (27.56 km) Day 11 – Port Louis → Beach House North (32.08 km) 🔔 Subscribe and follow the playlist — new episodes drop as we walk! ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ #WalkAroundMauritius #MauritiusAnimalWelfare #CapMalheureuxChurch #PereybereBeach #GrandGaube #AnseLaRaie #Calodyne #StrayDogsMauritius #AnimalRescueMauritius #CommunitySterilizationCampaign #CharityWalkMauritius #WalkingForACause #MauritiusCoastline #MauritiusWalkingTour #MauritiusTravelVlog #WomenOver50 #WomensHealth #MauritiusDogs #MauritiusBeaches