Reunion

Approaching Reunion Island from the Northeast

Our passage from Rodrigues to Reunion had pretty light winds most of the way and we had to motor for about 16 hours to keep moving along.  We arrived in Reunion on Saturday, 12/6 on a lovely, sunny day.  Reunion is a roughly circular island with a diameter of about 36 miles.  It is part of France and has been since the late 16th century.  Being part of France allows the island to have first world infrastructure so they have great roads and lots of traffic.  The current population is around 900,000.  There is an active volcano in the Southeast so that area is not very populated.  The larger cities are around the coastal areas with many smaller villages scattered through the interior.  They seem to have some tourism, mostly from France but it's not a particularly easy island to get to.  Most of the tourist area is along the west coast.  The island is volcanic and at one time had a large number of volcanoes that have collapsed over the centuries, leaving a unique and remarkable landscape.  I've tried to get some photos but, once again, the pictures don't come close to the reality.  I have really enjoyed our week here and I'll be leaving tomorrow thinking that I will need to come back one day and finish exploring this amazing place.

From the sea you can get an idea of the mountainous nature of the island.  These raviens and hills are the defining features of the island and this is a very small example of one.  The towns are usually on the high ground with reviens on each side.

At the base of these cliffs is the highway that leads from Le Port to St Denni, which is the capitol.  It's a lovely drive and I imagine the homes on top have a great view.

This is the other end of that 8-10 kilometer long cliff on the East side of Le Port.  There are 2 ports here and we tied up in Port O'est (West).  There are no good natural harbors on the island so all of them are very nice man made ports that are very well protected from storms and high seas.

I went in with some shipmates and we rented 2 cars and drove up to a village in the interior called Cilaos.  As the crow flies the distance from the coast to Cilaos is about 8-10 kilometers but the road up the mountain is 36 kilometers and you can't go more than about 20 due to hairpin turns.  It took us a couple of hours to get there but we stopped a few times and took pictures.  Fortunately they drive on the right side of the road, which is good since I did all the driving.

Here is where we started to climb into the mountains.  The valley is very wide with a flat rocky bottom and there is a very small stream, maybe 10 feet wide, in the center.  We pretty much followed this valley all the way up.  The highest point on the island is a little over 3,000 meters, so a little over 10,000 feet.  That's quite a bit of altitude to cover from sea level at the cost to 3,000 meters in about 10 kilometers.

This should give you a sense of the road.  It was in excellent condition and quite steep.  The red sign you see is actually a bus stop.  Yes, they run busses up and down to all of the towns in the interior.  It costs 1.5 Euros to take the bus from the coast to Cilao.  Just to the right and on the outer edge of the turn you can see 2 posts.  This is a marked hicking trail that descends into the valley.  Reunion has hundreds of kilometers of improved hicking trails all over the island, many with cottages spaced a day's hike apart.  One trail makes a complete circle for over 100 kilometers and takes about 17 days to hike.

This is more than half way up the mountain at another bus stop.  Unfortunately the higher elevations are frequently shrouded in clouds but, if it were clear we would be able to see the sea in the center.

Steep, beautiful country.

This tunnel is about 300 meters long.  You're running along on the nice two lane mountain road and you turn into the tunnel enterence to find that the tunnel is only one lane wide and the inside of the tunnel is unfinished, bare rock.  They did put a wide spot in the middle so cars could get around each other if they meet.  There were a few tunnels like this but this one was the longest.

Near the top is the very French village of Cilaos

This is the view back from that church above.  The mountains are kind of lost in the haze, but they're there.  The village was pretty much closed by the time we arrived so we just walked through and admired how beautiful it is.

I have made a point of stopping and smelling all the new flowers that I see.  I was able to smell these flowers before I got anywhere near the trees.  There were namy of these trees and they were very fragarent, with a sweet scent similar to lilacs.  This bridge crossed a water run off canal, which was empty except that the flowers were falling from the trees like snow and the canal was coated with them.  Below the bridge, beside the canal was a littly grassy park.

There is one more interesting tidbit about Reunion.  There is a great deal of shark activity along the west coast.  Yes, I did say above that the west coast is the tourist area.  The beach that I stayed at had and area that had reef of on two sides and a shark net along the seaward side.  This area was also patrolled by jet-ski.  Swimming was only allowed in that small section.  The rest of the beach was posted as a No Swimming area, due to sharks.