A Guide To Cap Malheureux Mauritius: The Northernmost Point of Mauritius!

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Right at the tippy top of Mauritius is Cap Malheureux. Known for its ‘red roof church’ and overlooking Coin de Mire island (also known as Gunner’s Quion), here’s what you can expect from visiting this area and some of the things you can do and see!

Cap Malheureux Mauritius

Cap Malheureux Church

As mentioned above, one of the landmarks in Northern Mauritius is Notre-Dame Auxiliatrice de Cap Malheureux, the red-roof church. This is a Catholic church built in 1938 that sits right next to the beach. 

Visitors are able to go inside if they wish. I chose not to, but this is something you may like to do. They have services on Saturday at 6pm and Sunday at 9.30am.

The area around the church is a really nice, peaceful place to relax and watch the world go by. There are some benches as well as public toilets. (If you have read my other Mauritius beach guides, the toilets are clean but they have NO toilet paper, so it’s best to carry your own tissues.)

During my visit, there was also a lady selling some jewellery-type items but there were no other facilities directly at the beach. A small drinks vendor was located back along the main road if you needed something to drink.

Arulmigu Draupadee Ammen Thirukovil Pavillion Cap Malheureux

About a 10-minute walk from the red-roof church, located further inland closer to the village is a brightly coloured Hindu temple. (Listed as: ‘Sri Draubadi Ammen Temple Society‘ on maps)

The temples in Mauritius are very impressive and they have SO much detail with different symbols from the religion covering the outside in a rainbow of pastel colours.

From my research, it was built in the early 19th century by ‘overseas’ labourers from South India, where this colourful style of temple is common. The pavilion in Cap Malheureux is dedicated to Draupadi Amman, a Hindi goddess, often worshipped as a ‘village goddess’. It is believed that she was born from a sacrificial fire and was very beautiful.

I went through the entrance archway, leaving my flip flops here and walked around the outside of the building to get a closer look at the artwork. The doors to the main temple were open, so I peaked in, but again chose not to enter completely.

When I don’t practise a particular religion I feel like I shouldn’t always go into sacred places, and instead just quietly respect it from the outside. That’s just my personal choice though.

Temple Tamoul

Back along the main coast road, is Temple Tamoul. This is a smaller Hindu temple but still has the bright colours, similar to the architecture of Sri Draubadi Ammen Temple above.

As you can see from the photo below, the gates were closed, so we just looked at this one from the outside. The big fence around it does make it a little tricky to see though.

Bain Boeuf Public Beach

Bain Boeuf Public Beach also comes under Cap Malheureux. I wrote a full guide to visiting this beach that you can check out in a previous post if you’d like to find out more. (Linked at the start of this paragraph).

In summary, there is a large parking area with a shaded park area, with benches, outside showers and public toilets. There are also a couple of vendors selling souvenirs, like sarongs and coconut bowls. The beach is set down a little lower and is accessed via steps or a slope under a little pedestrian bridge.

Personally, unless you are staying at the Coin De Mire Attitude hotel, I would probably recommend Pereybere Beach if using public transport or Mon Choisy if you driving. A large section of the beach has sandbags to stop erosion, and there isn’t really any swimming area. There are loads of boats and at low tide the water isn’t deep enough to swim in.

However, if you are staying at the Coin De Mire Attitude Hotel, they have an area in front of a small section of sand, with sun loungers, umbrellas and free water sport rentals for guests (including a free glass bottom boat tour around the lagoon!).

So for this, I thought it was worth it and I found this a nice quiet area to relax. But I don’t think I would travel out of my way to visit this particular beach for a day trip. (Although the red roof church is often part of north island day trips).

Coin De Mire Attitude Hotel

If you are looking at staying in the north of Mauritius, you can’t go wrong with the Coin De Mire Attitude, I found it to be good value for money.

I really liked the layout of the hotel. Rather than it being like a big ‘block’ hotel building with corridors, most rooms had pathways or staircases onto the main path through the hotel grounds. There were lots of trees, so it felt quite private and quiet.

(We did have a lizard in our room…but hey, that’s Africa! Zanzibar was the same!)

Food & Drink

We stayed on a half-board basis, so breakfast and dinner were included in the room rate. Honestly, I think if we were staying on a bed and breakfast basis we would have struggled for dinner. There weren’t a huge amount of places to eat within walking distance, so you’d need to get a taxi into Pereybere or Grand Baie.

There are drinking water refill stations dotted around the hotel and in-room tea and coffee are also included.

An all-inclusive package is also available, however, we didn’t think the price difference was worth it for us. We could still purchase food and drink from the bar and add it to a room tab, which we paid when checking out.

Facilities

For hotel facilities: the WiFi was always strong, there are two swimming pools (one ‘main’ pool with sun loungers) and a book exchange with free tea and biscuits.

As mentioned above, there is a section of beach, but it is across the road. The security guard does help guests cross the road, but I didn’t find the traffic to be that bad.

There was also a whole programme of events. Such as:

• beach clean-ups
• sports competitions
• rum tasting
• demonstrations
• paddle boarding lessons
• and evening music and entertainment.

The only downside we found is that it is, obviously, so far away from the south. The north of the island tends to be drier and warmer and is good if you just plan on relaxing. But the south of the island is more mountainous and has more geographical features like waterfalls and things to do.

We did the journey to and from the south 6 times (2 day trips and 2 airport transfers) and it was mostly just long motorway driving. Taxis cost approximately 5000 rupees to reach the south of Mauritius.

Cap Malheureux By Bus

An alternative option to taxis are the local buses. There’s a bus station in Cap Malheureux village as well as bus stops along the main road.

One of the main bus routes servicing Cap Malheureux links with Port Louis. You can easily get off or on at Pereybere, Grand Baie and Mon Choisy to name a few stops on the route. From Port Louis you can get to locations all around the island.

Once you are on board, a conductor will come to you and deal with the tickets. It’s best to pay in low denominations (so small notes or coins). Cap Malheureux church to Bain Boeuf cost us 24 rupees. Bain Boeuf to Grand Baie was 30 rupees or to Mon Choisy was 39 rupees.

The Mauritius Buses website has lots of information about how to get from A to B around the island. It tells you the bus routes and the approximate fares for each journey.

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