Chamarel map of the sights, roads and viewpoints

The Chamarel map, sight by sight

The map below places every sight in and around Chamarel on the main roads, with a rough drive time from the Seven Coloured Earth gate and two links for each place, one to open it in Google Maps and one for directions from where you are.

The road lines are drawn from OpenStreetMap, and the drive times are rough estimates rather than routed figures, so allow extra time on the hairpins and behind coaches. The village is the black dot, the geopark and Ebony Forest sit to its south-west, and the plateau sights string out eastwards along the B103.

The two roads up and the plateau road

Two roads climb to Chamarel from the coast, both numbered B104, and a third, the B103, crosses the plateau to the east.

From the west, the B104 leaves the B9 coast road at Case Noyale and climbs about 4 km in hairpins, passing the Chamarel viewpoint and Le Chamarel Restaurant before it enters the village. Its mapped name is the Baie du Cap Chamarel Case Noyale Road. From the south, the same B104 climbs about 11 km from Baie du Cap through forest hairpins and passes the geopark gate and Curious Mauritius before it reaches the village.

The B103, Plaine Champagne Road, leaves the village eastwards past the Sainte-Anne church and the Rhumerie de Chamarel, then climbs onto the plateau, where it tops out at about 740 m, past Varangue sur Morne, the Black River Peak trailhead and the Gorges viewpoint, towards Alexandra Falls, Le Pétrin and Grand Bassin.

How the sights sit on the hill

Chamarel’s sights sit in a rough arc south and west of the village, with the Rhumerie de Chamarel just to the east, the geopark gate 1.5 km to the south and the waterfall, the dunes and Ebony Forest 2 to 2.5 km away to the south-west, all in a straight line.

• The village centre, with the Sainte-Anne church on the B103, sits at about 260 m, and the Rhumerie de Chamarel is about 0.6 km to the east-south-east.
• The Chamarel viewpoint is about 0.7 km north-west of the village on the B104 towards Case Noyale, about 100 m from Le Chamarel Restaurant.
• The geopark gate and ticket booth are on the B104 about 1.5 km south of the village, with Curious Mauritius beside them.
• Inside the geopark, the road runs 1.5 km from the entrance to the waterfall viewpoints and their car park and 3 km to the dunes, by the geopark’s own figures. On foot it is 3 km each way.
• Ebony Forest, on the 7 Coloured Earth Road, is about 1.9 km west of the geopark gate in a straight line, with parking at its welcome centre.
• Chamarel Waterfall lies in Savanne district, while most of the village lies in Rivière Noire district.

How the plateau sights line up along the B103

Along the B103 east of the village, the plateau sights come in a line, Varangue sur Morne and a second roadside point named Viewpoint Chamarel at about 2.7 km, the Black River Peak trailhead at about 3.7 km, the Black River Gorges viewpoint at 4.0 km and Alexandra Falls at 7.0 km, all measured in a straight line from the village centre.

Road distances are longer, because the B103 winds as it climbs. Grand Bassin lies about 10.5 km east in a straight line and 16.8 km by road, and the Pétrin information centre of the Black River Gorges National Park is about 8.6 km to the east-north-east. The plateau is cooler than the village and can sit in cloud, so a pin that looks close may still be a slow, grey drive.

Coordinates of the main sights

The table gives each sight’s coordinates in decimal degrees from OpenStreetMap unless noted, ready to paste into the search box of a map app, with the straight-line distance from the village centre.

Some published pins disagree with these. One widely used pin puts the village about 600 m north-west of the point in the table, and a published coordinate for Black River Peak lies about 6 km east of the summit, so check that a pin lands where you expect before you drive.

How to use offline maps in Chamarel

Save an offline map of Chamarel before you leave the coast. There is a data signal in the village and at the geopark, but it is unreliable on forest trails and patchy in parts of the Black River Gorges.

Most map apps let you download an area for offline use. Choose one that runs from Case Noyale and Le Morne in the west to Grand Bassin in the east and down to Baie du Cap, so that both roads up and the whole plateau road are covered, and zoom in far enough to show the B103 and the B104. Your phone’s GPS keeps working without a data signal, so your position still moves on a saved map.

Then save the coordinates from the table as favourites, since searching by name can send you astray. Chamarel Waterfall has different pins in different databases, the village shares its name with a rum brand, and a restaurant called Le Chamarel exists in Switzerland. Searching for the mapped road names, Baie du Cap Chamarel Case Noyale Road for the B104 and Plaine Champagne Road for the B103, also helps.