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North Island Resort, Seychelles Vacation and North Island Resort Luxury Travel Package
 Standing on Beau Vallon Beach on Mahé, if you look due North East you can see a tiny hump on the horizon, just to the right of the mountainous Silhouette Island. In the early years of habituation and exploration on Mahé, people would have done exactly that - stood on Beau Vallon Beach and looked out to sea at Ile du Nord and its' sentinel, Silhouette Island. In 1784 a Portuguese ship was wrecked on North Island. After spending some time marooned on the island, a small handful of the ship's crew built a makeshift raft and risked their lives sailing to Mahé to find rescue. We know for certain that there were no inhabitants living on North Island at the time of the wreck, but through that event, settlers from Mahé would have received a good description of North Island. Its plateau, fresh water supply and ample presence of fish and fowl would have drawn the first inhabitants. Officially, the Island's first concession was given in 1826 to a woman, Madam Marie Josephine Celerine Beaufond, a descendant of French settlers from Bourbon (now Reunion). The Island remained in her family's name for the next one hundred and fifty years, as a plantation for growing fruits and spices, mining Guano, fish oil and finally producing copra - the oil pressed from the flesh of a coconut. There is very little documentation of life on North Island during the first century of its habituation. Having uncovered such little information about the Beaufond's life on the Island during that early era, it seems an impossibility that we should ever know anything about the lives of their slaves and later their plantation workers. How much of their African origins were they aware of? And how many nuances remain within them as a collective Creole people? In the early days North Island would probably have been planted full with vanilla, patchouli, cinnamon, ylang-ylang, citronella, nutmeg, cloves and all sorts of fruit. From the aromatic plants grown on the Island, they would have been distilling the essential oils and it is believed that the museum building was once the distillery, built before the turn of the century at the time when that industry was flourishing in the Seychelles. With its wide coral stone walls and narrow arches, it would have been a cool, cavernous space, perfect for the purpose of distilling. With the abolition of slavery, the industry moved towards the production of copra. Even though North Island was planted predominantly with coconut, it remained more fertile than most islands, and proved to be an excellent farm for fresh produce - Mahé's chief supplier. The elaborate size and quality of the produce grown on North Island is still remembered amongst many older Seychellois people on Mahé - who extrapolate with widened, humorous eyes and animated hand gestures. After the Island was sold in the seventies, it remained an old farm, but not a commercial one, and without all the farm workers to tend to it, it fell into an overgrown state, the farm buildings quickly rotting to the core in this steaming climate and the domestic animals running wild. The 'pack' of cattle stalked in secret places on the mountainside and became so wiley and elusive, that it has taken two years to catch those that were there. The coconuts were left to take over the Island, dropping their nuts continually, a new burgeoning canopy rising up every few years. The lantana - an invasive alien weed - was also blanketing the plateau and crowded any clearings left open by the coconuts. Thriving on the uncollected fallen coconuts, the rat population also ran amok, the feral cats shortly on their trail. Then North Island was bought and the new "Noah's Ark" idea was hatched. The purchase and development of North Island heralds a new birth for this exceptional island that resonates with potential and with the promise of a bright future. THE GEOGRAPHY OF NORTH ISLAND One of the most northerly of all the granitic Inner islands, North Island, which measures 2.5 km x 1km and with a surface area of around 210 hectares (462 acres), lies approximately 32 kilometers (20 miles) north west of Mahé and five kilometers north of Silhouette. Three granitic mountains dominate the Island - Grand Paloss (180m/585 feet) to the north, Bernica (120m) to the southwest and Conglement (100m) to the southeast. These outcrops drop directly into the sea, bordered by giant boulders and between them lie three areas of flat coastal plain or "Island plateaux". There are four beaches on the Island, one of which will always be sheltered from the prevailing winds at any given time.
Run-off from the granitic mountains combined with the geological structure of the plateau itself has resulted in two freshwater lakes being formed in the middle of the Island. During the wet season the water table in these lakes rises. Protection of the Island's valuable water resources through the removal of alien vegetation has been a critical part of the rehabilitation process. Marianne North Save time, money and stress!
For reservations: Fill out the vacation planner to be contacted by our North Island vacation specialist. Contact: Travelwizard.com Phone: 1-415-446-5252 or 1-800-330-8820 |
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