Reunion, the wild side
Stamper at sunset in St Pierre marina
Volcanic beach on the south side of Reunion.
We had some exciting days. Wednesday 19 September a big swell was aimed directly at our perilous harbour entrance. For a week people had been talking about cars being washed away by the seas coming over the huge pier and we had visions of Stamper pulling like a wild bull on her lines. Altough the water in the marina did flow quite a bit, Stamper behaved well. The harbour entrance did provide spectecular foto's and video's. No need to tell anyone not to enter or leave through these breaking waves!
The next menu item of wild things was taking our little rented Suzuki Alto up to the inlands of Reunion. 4 big Craters, each 8-10 km wide with edges of 300-800 meter high provide for an amazing scenery and many days of hiking on the 'Grands Randonnees'. We were happy to take our little iron horse over many hairpin bends in this rugged terrain.Only once we decided not to take a 'helter skelter' road that Google Maps had decided was the shortest route, but would have most likely meant the end-of-life for our Suzuki. Walking will be limited to hours and one bigger walk of two days up the 3070 meter high Piton de Neiges (peak of the snows). The night will be spent in a gite on the slopes of that mountain and we hope no snow.
The nez de Boeuf
The Piton de la Fournaise
Smoking volcano
The Commerson Crater
View from the Cirque de Colaos to the west.
Colaos
Ilet a Cordes
Canyoning
In the Cirque de Salazie
A view towards le Port
A helicopter delivering goods into the cirque de Mafate, the only way, except on foot
The Wall, volcanic ash, 800 m high and nearly vertical
Hell Bourg, a quaint village
The nicest post office I know.
Reunion ranks high on our list of favorite places: the Crater edges have most likely never been climbed, nearly vertical cliffs of volcanic ashes, the East side of Reunion lush with vegetation and waterfalls, the West dry. The inland mountain villages in old style wooden houses that remind us of Cape Town. The South Crater with a still active volcano. It resembles the Pacific volcanic islands, the Marquesas having the plus of very little tourists. Reunion has unsurpassed facilities and infrastructure mostly sponsored by the European Union and a bit from France.
25 September
We feel like real mountainclimber! Wet, exhausted, nearly broke our legs with frequent falls on slippery rocks but Magnificent Views!
The view from the summit of the Piton des Neiges yowards the cirque de Mafate. Just ahead in the middle is the famous 'Wall', but now we are looking down on it. in the valley you can just see a bit of Marla.
We started off in a drizzle at 08:10 and 1300 m leaving our little Suzuki in a parking place at the Grand Randonnee. Our plan was to reach the 'Gite" the mountain hut, we booked for the night at 2480 m. And at 11:45, being up there, we were ready to call it a day except for the stories from other climbers that that morning it had been raining hard on the summit and most people had abandoned their efforts. By 13:00 the sun started shining and we had recovered enough to try our luck that same day. We counted ourselves very lucky to reach the summit at 3070 m as one of the few climbers, arrive back before dark and the onset of a new deluge. At 3:30 in the morning we were woken up by nearly all other climbers in the hut leaving in the dark to reach the summit at sunrise. Little did they see through howling winds, torrential rains and arrived back at the gite soaked, shivering and disappointed while we got up.
A partial round view of the top
Clouds soon closed in
These little birds are even on the top, inquisitive, not afraid and making a lovely song. They are called Tutu's according to Julie.
On the way down, in the evening light, the spanish moss was really yellow. I tried to fiddle with the foto to mimic that appearance, but it did not really work.