For many people, Trou aux Biches is the most beautiful beach in Mauritius: a long stretch of fine white sand, shaded by filao trees, facing a calm, shallow turquoise lagoon. It's the classic island postcard, with one extra advantage: a reef close to the shore that makes it one of the best easy-access snorkelling spots in the country.
Unlike its busy neighbour Grand Baie, Trou aux Biches is quieter and more family-friendly: the plan is to swim, snorkel, laze in the shade and watch the sun go down over the sea (it faces west, so the sunsets are spectacular). It's also a water sports hub: dive trips, catamarans to the northern islets and the famous Blue Safari submarine all leave from here.
As a base, it gives you the best of both worlds: the calm of a great public beach and the closeness (10-15 minutes) of Grand Baie's services and nightlife. Mont Choisy, Pointe aux Piments and its aquarium, and Pamplemousses are all a short hop away. Ideal if you want a relaxed beach stay without giving up excursions or comfort.
Once a coast of fishermen and sugar cane fields in the north, Trou aux Biches became one of the island's best-loved beaches with the tourism boom. Its story, alongside that of the settlement of Mauritius, is on the Trou aux Biches history page.
Read the full history ↓The coast where the British landed in 1810, now the island's tourist capital, with its sheltered bays and white-sand beaches.
Read the history of The north (Grand Baie and the beaches) →They depart from Grand Baie, 5 km away. If you book from this link we earn a commission and you pay no more.
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Origins, formation and what the sources say.
The name says it all: 'Trou aux Biches' means 'the does' hole' in French. It refers to a natural spring or watering hole where, in colonial times, the deer brought to the island came down to drink near the coast. Behind that idyllic image lies a very Mauritian story: that of a natural world almost entirely imported.
It's always worth remembering that Mauritius had no human population and no large land mammals before the 17th century. The deer that gave this beach its name were brought by the Dutch and the French for hunting. The island that today looks like a 'natural' tropical Eden is really a centuries-long experiment in which almost everything (plants, animals and people) arrived by sea. Grasp that, and you grasp why species and cultures from the four corners of the world live side by side here.
The first to settle were the Dutch, who founded a colony in 1638 and named the island Mauritius, after Prince Maurice of Nassau. Their best-remembered legacy is, ironically, an act of destruction: the extinction of the dodo, the large flightless bird that had no fear of humans. Hunted by sailors and preyed on by the pigs, rats and monkeys that came with them, the dodo had vanished by the late 17th century, just decades after first contact.
That extinction turned the dodo into the universal symbol of how fragile island species are, and into the ironic emblem of Mauritius. Beaten by cyclones and pests, the Dutch abandoned the island in 1710. They left behind sugar cane, deer, rats and an ecosystem already changed forever, ready for the next settlers.
In 1715 France took possession of the island, named it Isle de France and turned it into a prosperous sugar colony and naval base, built on the labour of thousands of enslaved people brought from Africa and Madagascar. The northwest coast, with its sheltered lagoons, was an area of fishing, small anchorages and defence: near Trou aux Biches, Pointe aux Cannoniers owes its name to the cannon batteries that kept watch over the sea.
That watch wasn't enough. In 1810, in the middle of the Napoleonic Wars, the British landed their troops in the north of the island and, after a swift campaign, forced the French colony to surrender. In 1814 Mauritius became British and got its old name back. Shrewdly, the British let the French settlers keep their language, their Catholic faith and their civil code, which is why, two centuries later, French and Creole are still the everyday languages along these shores.
Throughout the 19th century, the north of Mauritius was a sea of cane fields. The sugar mills set the rhythm of life and the economy depended entirely on sugar. When the British Empire abolished slavery in 1835, the landowners turned to a new kind of workforce: hundreds of thousands of indentured labourers from India, who landed in Port Louis and were spread out across the plantations.
That huge wave of migration gave rise to the island's Hindu majority, alongside Muslim and Chinese communities and the descendants of enslaved Africans and Malagasy people, the creators of the vibrant Creole culture. In the coastal villages of the north, Creole fishermen, Indian cane cutters and Chinese traders lived side by side, and from that mix came sega, the traditional music and dance you can still hear on the beaches at sunset. Trou aux Biches, as a fishing village, was a humble witness to that fusion.
Mauritius gained independence from the United Kingdom on 12 March 1968, with Seewoosagur Ramgoolam as the nation's first leader, and became a Republic in 1992. The country set out to diversify its economy beyond sugar, and tourism became a key part of it. The northern beaches, with their white sand and calm lagoons, were bound to take centre stage.
Trou aux Biches, until then a quiet coast of fishermen and cane fields, began to change in the 1970s and 1980s. Its shallow lagoon and a reef close to the shore, perfect for swimming and snorkelling, made it one of the most sought-after beaches on the island. The big resorts and guesthouses arrived, and the 'does' hole' started showing up in rankings of the best beaches in the Indian Ocean. Small-scale fishing largely gave way to diving trips and catamarans.
Today Trou aux Biches is shorthand for the perfect beach: a long strip of white sand shaded by casuarina trees, facing a turquoise lagoon protected by the same coral reef that makes it famous among snorkellers. Luxury resorts, family hotels and Mauritian families who come at weekends with their barbecues and music all share the place.
That reef, however, is also its weak spot: coral bleaching from warming seas, pressure from tourism and development along the coast are real challenges for the future of these lagoons. The story of Trou aux Biches, like that of all Mauritius, is one of a paradise built entirely through contact between continents, and of an island now learning to look after the fragile ecosystem its greatest treasure depends on: the sea.
As you walk along the sand, it's worth remembering that almost nothing you see is 'native' in the strict sense. The casuarinas giving shade were brought in to hold the sand in place; the deer that gave the place its name came by ship; the colourful reef fish are among the few truly native residents of this corner of the island. The culture that brings the beach to life (the sega playing at weekends, the curries and grilled fish from the stalls, families of every background sharing the same shore) is the result of centuries of forced and voluntary mixing. Trou aux Biches is beautiful not in spite of that history of empires, slavery and immigration, but because of it: its lagoon calmly reflects the long journey that turned an empty island in the Indian Ocean into one of the most diverse societies in the world.
