![\"seychelles](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/oliverberry.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/seychelles-beach.jpg?resize=959%2C614\" "\\"Anse")
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Project description: 16pp travel feature
\nClient: Lonely Planet Traveller
\nDate: May 2013
\nArticle photography by Justin Foulkes<\/p>\n
Mah\u00e9 is the most populous island in the Seychelles. It\u2019s also home to the islands\u2019 capital, Victoria, and the international airport.<\/em><\/p>\n The mountainous skyline of Mah\u00e9 \/ Image \u00a9 Oliver Berry 2013<\/em><\/p>\n Spears of sunlight slice through the forest canopy as Terence Belle tramps into the jungled heart of Mah\u00e9, the largest and most mountainous of the hundred-odd islands that make up the Seychelles. He picks his way along the overgrown trail, hacking through ferns and palm fronds, stopping only to squeeze past a granite boulder or step across a brook. Overhead, unseen birds screech and hoot among the treetops, and palm leaves rattle like paper in the breeze.<\/p>\n \u2018I haven\u2019t walked this trail for six months,\u2019 explains Terence, who runs botanical walks around the island. \u2018And in that time the forest has already changed so much. Everything grows so fast that if we don\u2019t walk the trails regularly, before too long we can\u2019t find them again!\u2019<\/p>\n He steps off the path into a thicket of bamboo, with stalks as thick as drainpipes. \u2018This bamboo is only a few years old,\u2019 he says laughing. \u2018And look at the size of it! I think if you just stood still and waited, you could almost see it grow.\u2019<\/p>\n A spine of craggy granite peaks runs along the centre of Mah\u00e9, crossed by a network of trails tramped by generations of Mah\u00e9lois. Some are packhorse routes that date back to the days of the early settlers. Others were cut by spice traders during the 17th and 18th centuries, who planted tea, cinnamon, cloves and ginger, long since abandoned and now growing wild on the hillsides.<\/p>\n Mah\u00e9\u2019s trails offer a route into the island\u2019s most secret corners. While much of the coast has been cleared for agriculture, at higher altitudes large tracts of virgin rainforest survive. Here, geckos and skinks dart through the foliage, and pitcher plants dangle among moss-covered palms. Some of the islands\u2019 most endangered flora and fauna is found here, including the Gardiner\u2019s Seychelles frog, tinier than a human fingernail, and the fabulously rare jellyfish tree, which gets its name from its starfish-like flowers.<\/p>\n \u2018Most people never explore beyond the beaches,\u2019 says Terence, as the trail emerges onto a plateau overlooking the misty summit of Morne Seychellois, the island\u2019s highest mountain. \u2018But it\u2019s in the forest where you find the greatest treasures. You just have to know where to look.\u2019<\/p>\n As he begins the tramp back down the trail, and is soon swallowed up by the jungle, the holler of bulbul birds booms from the treeline, and white clouds spill over Mah\u00e9\u2019s jagged peaks.<\/p>\n FURTHER INFORMATION The Ste-Anne Marine Park can be reached by boat in around twenty minutes from Mah\u00e9\u2019s harbour, to the southeast of the town of Victoria, on trips with local tour companies.<\/em><\/p>\n The islands of Ste-Anne Marine Park\/ Image \u00a9 Oliver Berry 2013<\/em><\/p>\n A skein of spray arcs over the boat\u2019s prow as it sculls across the waves, heading for a chain of islands framed against the afternoon sky. Beneath the keel, the water flashes through a kaleidoscope of ocean colours: lime-greens, aquamarines, cobalts, china-blues. Sometimes it\u2019s like peering through frosted glass; at others, it\u2019s as pure as crystal. As he nears one of the islands, captain Eric Lafortune cuts the motor and lets the boat drift on the swell, allowing his cargo of snorkellers to slip into the water without the trace of a splash.<\/p>\n Situated just off Mah\u00e9\u2019s northeast coast, the Ste-Anne Marine Park encompasses six islands spread across five square miles of the Indian Ocean. In previous centuries these islands were home to just a few scattered residents \u2013 as well as a leper colony and a prison \u2013 but since 1973 the underwater habitat around them has been protected as a marine reserve.<\/p>\n Each island has its own topography. Ile Cach\u00e9e and Round Island are little more than specks of scrubby land peeping out above the ocean, while Long Island and Ste-Anne Island are jungled and hilly. They are divided by channels filled with coral banks and meadows of sea-grass, providing the perfect habitat for all kinds of underwater life: spiny sea urchins, striped sergeant majors and shiny parrotfish.<\/p>\n Boatman Eric Lafortune grew up on the little island of Moyenne, and learned the layout of the bay\u2019s channels and sandbanks from his grandfather, a lifelong fisherman. \u2018Much of the bay is very shallow,\u2019 he explains. \u2018In many places it\u2019s only a metre deep, so you have to be careful not to become beached. But I have a map of the whole bay stored inside my head, so I\u2019m never worried about that!\u2019<\/p>\n Moyenne itself is now run as a private reserve thanks to the work of the late Brendon Grimshaw \u2013 a Yorkshireman who purchased the island in 1962 and spent the next fifty years restoring its natural environment. His efforts set an important precedent: Ste-Anne\u2019s precious coral reefs are facing serious challenges thanks to the effects of increased construction on nearby Mah\u00e9, and the pace of climate change.<\/p>\n \u2018There\u2019s no doubt the seas are changing,\u2019 Eric says. \u2018The seasons are different and the weather is more unpredictable. To me, the islands are like members of my family, so of course I notice the change. Everyone in the Seychelles knows what a special place this is, and we must do all we can to protect it.\u2019<\/p>\n FURTHER INFORMATION Praslin is a one-hour ferry trip or a 15-minute flight from Mah\u00e9. Single fares aboard the ferry cost about \u00a340 (catcocos.com), and air seychelles flights cost around \u00a395 return (airseychelles.com).<\/em><\/p>\n The male and female fruits of the coco de mer, Praslin Island \/ Image \u00a9 Oliver Berry 2013<\/em><\/p>\n \u2018Now that\u2019s what I call a nut!\u2019 laughs Shaun Larue, pointing into the branches of a coco de mer tree somewhere in the Vall\u00e9e de Mai Nature Reserve. Nine metres up, a cluster of yellow coconuts clings to the tree-trunk like a bunch of giant\u2019s grapes, each the size of a rugby ball. Around the tree\u2019s base, the forest floor is littered with the husks of others which have crashed to earth and exploded into shards of coconut shrapnel. \u2018You wouldn\u2019t want to be underneath it when it falls, that\u2019s for sure,\u2019 he giggles.<\/p>\n As if to underline the point, a crash and thud rings out from the trees, like a bowling ball tumbling to the forest floor. \u2018See what I mean?\u2019 he says. He picks up a fallen nut and turns it over in his hands, shaded by fronds suspended from the overhanging palms. \u2018I\u2019ve had some close calls, but thankfully my head is still in one piece.\u2019 He sets off in search of another specimen and before too long is lost in the undergrowth, a tiny figure dwarfed by\u00a0dinosaur-sized trees.<\/p>\n The gargantuan coco de mer \u2013 the world\u2019s largest coconut and seed of any type \u2013 is produced by one of the Seychelles\u2019 most precious endemic plants. It grows only in a couple of narrow valleys on Praslin, the archipelago\u2019s second-largest island. Each nut takes six years to reach maturity, measures up to half a metre in length and weighs between 15 and 30kg \u2013 roughly 10 times the weight of the average coconut.<\/p>\n The plant wasn\u2019t discovered in the wild until the 19th century, but its nuts had long been known to sailors and explorers, who found them washed up on beaches all over the Indian Ocean and concluded that they grew in a magical underwater garden (hence the name, which is French for \u2018coconut of the sea\u2019). But it wasn\u2019t the nuts\u2019 size which piqued the men\u2019s curiosity; it was their shape. Inside each nut is an enormous double-lobed seed that bears an uncanny resemblance to the female posterior \u2013 complete with intimate anatomical details that would make even\u00a0the saltiest of sailors blush.<\/p>\n Unsurprisingly given their erotic shape, the nuts have long been rumoured to have aphrodisiac qualities, and for centuries The Vall\u00e9e de Mai itself remained untouched until the 1930s, but the introduction of other tropical tree species in the \u201940s and \u201950s damaged its fragile ecosystem, and it was eventually made a national nature reserve in 1966, and a Unesco World Heritage site in 1983. \u2018We\u2019ve worked hard to return the valley to its natural state,\u2019 explains Shaun, who works here part-time as a forest guide. \u2018Thankfully it\u2019s healthy again now, as you can probably see from the size of the trees.\u2019<\/p>\n He lays a hand on a palm trunk and listens to the soundtrack of the jungle: the chatter of parrots, the clink of streams and the creak of coconut boughs. Somewhere amongst the trees, there\u2019s a snap, then a smash, then a thump \u2013 and Shaun breaks into a grin. \u2018Sounds like it\u2019s time for us to find another coconut, eh?\u2019 he says.<\/p>\n FURTHER INFORMATION Cousin and sister islands Curieuse And St-Pierre can be visited on a day-trip from Praslin, booked through hotels or tour companies such as Mason’s Travel (www.masonstravel.com<\/a>),\u00a0<\/em>starting from around \u00a395.<\/em><\/p>\n George the giant tortoise and nature guide Ryan Morel \/ Image \u00a9 Oliver Berry 2013<\/em><\/p>\n \u2018This is George,\u2019 announces guide Ryan Morel, scratching the neck of a giant tortoise which is munching its way slowly through some green leaves. \u2018He\u2019s the old man of Cousin Island. We think he\u2019s definitely over 150, but he could be as old as 175. I suppose we should call him Grandfather George, really,\u2019 he laughs, stroking the tortoise\u2019s tessellated carapace as it lumbers off towards the nearby palms.<\/p>\n Cut off from the rest of Africa by nearly a thousand miles of ocean, the isolated location of the Seychelles has led to the development of many natural curiosities on the islands, and they don\u2019t get more curious than the giant tortoise. These huge reptiles are a distant relative of the world\u2019s other species of giant tortoise, and are thought to have descended from a common ancestor that roamed across the ancient supercontinent of Gondwana some 200 million years ago.<\/p>\n The endemic Seychelles giant tortoise is thought to have been hunted to extinction by the 19th century, but its close cousin, the Aldabra giant tortoise, can still be found in large numbers across much of the Seychelles \u2013 particularly the little island of Cousin, a government-owned nature reserve that\u2019s famous for the abundance and diversity of its wildlife.<\/p>\n Well over a hundred giant tortoises live on Cousin, some of which have reached truly enormous sizes, measuring more than a metre long and weighing in excess of 350kg. The island is also home to over 300,000 nesting seabirds and the world\u2019s longest millipede, not to mention the highest density of lizards on Earth. It\u2019s one of the few islands where the endemic Seychelles magpie robin survives, and between October and April, it\u2019s an important nesting site for hawksbill sea turtles, which crawl ashore to lay their eggs in the island\u2019s fringing circlet of sand.<\/p>\n \u2018Millipedes are one of the tortoises\u2019 favourite snacks,\u2019 Ryan explains, plucking one of the creatures from a hollow beneath a boulder. \u2018They nest in the higher areas of the island, and we often find the tortoises have wandered right up into the hills looking for them.\u2019 He reaches up and picks a fruit from a low-hanging shrub: an Indian mulberry or noni, a tropical fruit known for its nutritional value and notoriously rancid smell.<\/p>\n \u2018For some reason they also seem to like these,\u2019 he says, grimacing as he sniffs the fruit\u2019s yellow-white flesh. \u2018Like most things which taste awful, they\u2019re supposed to be good for you. Perhaps that explains why the tortoises live so long!\u2019<\/p>\n He emerges in a forest glade somewhere near the centre of the island, shaded by a curtain of banyan, ficus and pisonia trees. Around the grove, a group of giant tortoises roots in the dry earth, their shells banging together as they jostle for the juiciest leaves.<\/p>\n \u2018Most of our tortoises recognise us by sight now,\u2019 Ryan says, tickling one of the animals affectionately on its hind leg. \u2018They might not be the prettiest creatures on Earth, but to us, they\u2019re like old friends.\u2019<\/p>\n![\"mahe](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/oliverberry.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/mahe-mountains.jpg?resize=750%2C501\")
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\nTerence Belle (half-day from \u00a310; 00 248 2 722 492)<\/p>\nIsland-hopping in the Ste-Anne Marine Park<\/h2>\n
![\"ste](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/oliverberry.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/ste-anne-marine-park.jpg?resize=750%2C509\")
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\nAdmission \u00a311; snpa.sc\/marine-parks\/st-anne l<\/a>
\n\u2018Reef safari\u2019 day-trips from around \u00a365; operators include Mason’s Travel (masonstravel.com)<\/p>\nHunting for coco de mer on Praslin Island<\/h2>\n
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\nhave been used as a boost to male potency and fertility. These days, they\u2019re highly prized by botanical collectors, and their export is strictly controlled by the Seychelles government. Prime specimens can fetch upwards of \u00a3400, but have been known to sell for much more.<\/p>\n
\nwhc.unesco.org\/en\/list\/261<\/a>
\nVall\u00e9e de Mai admission \u00a311; sif.sc<\/a><\/p>\nThe giant tortoises of Cousin Island<\/h2>\n
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