Pointe d'Esny

Boasting of immaculate boulevards and leaf-fringed avenues, Pointe d'Esny is a typical beach town that looks like something straight out of a Hollywood feature film. Pointe d'Esny and the area around it has plenty of remnants from its colonial past, and the entire air surrounding the town has a lingering nostalgic vibe to it.

Pointe d'Esny Beach
One of the best beaches on the eastern side of the island, the Pointe d'Esny beach is a hidden gem just outside of Mahebourg. Hidden behind a row of luxury hotels and residential properties, the Pointe d'Esny is nearly inaccessible except via a small pathway leading up to the beach from the coastal road (which, admittedly, most tourists don’t know about).

The beach is very different from other mainstream tourist beaches on the island, and you will not find any eateries or snack stands or any hawkers selling food here, and there are practically no parking spaces as well. However, what you will see at the Pointe d'Esny beach is an unbroken kilometre-long stretch of fine, soft sand, a rather shallow seabed, and calm, clear water all around the lagoon.

That doesn’t mean that the beach is deserted, as, after all these years, a word about the hidden beach has spread around through word of mouth, but it stands in sharp contrast to the other bustling, touristy beaches of Mauritius, especially the close-by Blue Bay beach.

The crystalline water around the lagoon offers the perfect opportunity for a bout of snorkelling if you’re up for it! The lack of facilities, though, doesn’t encourage a whole-day trip, since at some point you’re bound to get hungry, but there aren’t any stalls you can buy snacks from.

Apart from the beach, there is not much to see or do in Pointe d'Esny, but the town serves as an essential pick-up and drop-off point for a visit to Île aux Aigrettes, an island a little distance away from the Pointe d'Esny coast, which is home to a very popular nature reserve. Île aux Aigrettes is a sprawling nature reserve situated on an island, and it is home to a wide variety of endangered endemic wildlife species of Mauritius.

How to Reach
Since almost all bus services travelling between this town and other famous cities of Mauritius are extremely time-consuming transports, the easiest way to get to Pointe d'Esny is by driving along the M2, getting off at the A10, from where you can reach your destination within 10 minutes taking the Coastal Road and getting off at Pointe d'Esny via the Blue Bay Link Road.