A week in the tiny French Island of Reunion

Landing in Reunion we were surprised to find no outlets to buy sim cards – which makes life difficult as we need to contact our accommodation to organise entry. Hanging around in the carpark using airport wifi to download an esim – not the easiest but success eventually. As our flight got changed to a later one it is almost dark when we arrive at our accommodation so we quickly set off for a local Indian restaurant.

View from our hotel.

We have all been hanging out for some spicy food after Madagascar – but no luck. The food was tasty but even though we asked for spicy it was very mild – and cost a bomb. Self catering from now on.

Walking around Saint Denis in the main part of the city is very quiet especially as it is a Saturday night, very unusual for a capital.

Everything is a little different here – the supermarkets shut early (lucky we can drink the water from the tap) and then nothing open when we left in the morning for our hike up in the mountains.

A very long incredibly windy road (but at least it was wide enough for 2 cars) took us up to the parking spot and we had a lovely walk finding all the endemic birds of the island – although 2 we only got fleeting glimpses and no photos.

Back down the windy road to find a supermarket – pretty hungry at nearly lunchtime with no breakfast. Oh dear, another not thought of bit of research. It’s Sunday and virtually nothing is open, no big supermarkets or small shops. We eventually find a McDonald’s open and have to resort to that, but then unlike everywhere else in the world their burgers are not customisable and everything has cheese, except one chicken burger. Order that but it comes with cheese – no use for me, annoying. Eventually at round 3pm we find a small local shop where we can get some basic supplies, at least we won’t go hungry tonight.

Up another windy road to our next stop at Cap Noir. On getting up in the morning we find that our accommodation has no water and the owner has to go and buy us bottles for drinking and a bucket for the toilet. Off we set in the morning to walk to the viewpoints only to find google takes us to a closed private road. Back to accommodation and luckily we ran into owner who then drove ahead of us to show us the right way to the walk.

The walk is a circuit but the map says the viewpoint to the right is closed – but as we saw lots of people walking that way and to the left was mountain goat territory we decided to follow and go right too.

Lovely walk and amazing views, the path at the start did have a chain gate across but that had obviously been ripped off ages ago, ditto the other 3 chain gates and wooden structures used to shut the path. Guess the locals did not agree and opened it again themselves. Very glad they did as it was really stunning and the other way would have been far too steep for us.

Next off to the coast for some snorkelling and a drama to try and access property due to language issues but eventually we get in. Very pokey place but at least we can walk to the snorkeling as there is no parking around here it is a very busy area.

Some reasonable snorkeling for off a beach with locals treading all over it, holding on to the coral and other such unacceptable behaviour. Lots of fish too but very shallow so we can only go in at high tide.

Just off out for our second day snorkeling when Steve manages to get himself shut in the toilet – the handle has completely jammed, we fed a knife under the door but even taking the handle off the door would not open. I messaged the owner but did not get a response so went out to wander around the grounds and see if I could find the gardener. No luck but spoke in sign language to a lady getting in her car, after a bit of strange communication she rang someone and told me to wait. A guy from another block of units came, he spoke some English and came to look at the door. He tried a few things but nothing worked and off he went to get a tool box. At this point the owner got back to me and I explained the issue, she spoke to the neighbour and they seemed to have an argument. The neighbour eventually managed to get the door open but it was not easy and it took a lot of effort. The owner just said she would see us tomorrow at check out – no sending anyone to fix the door – so the toilet does not shut for the rest of the visit. Not impressed with her service.

The sea is rougher today now we have actually got here but still worth a go and amazingly Chris found a white eel and I found 3 different species of eel all in one hole – never seen anything like that before.

The above pic shows 2 eels, then when they turned round the tail of a 3rd species came out.

We have between 10am and 3pm between places to stay so have decided to go for another snorkel and see if we can find the eels again, – really rough today, no eels and too hard to stay in for long but I did find an octopus.

A short drive to the next place and then just wandering around for a couple of hours, quite a different town here, a bit seedier and very crowded.

The BNB is just lovely and great to finally have somewhere outside to sit undercover, especially as it is a day of on-off rain.

Our only full day here is also very wet but we decided to brave the water between downpours, not sure that was worthwhile as the reef….. well not much to say about that except it is 90% destroyed. A few fish still around and it is interesting snorkelling on black sand as the previous beach was white sand but overall not worth it.

Our last day on the island was planned for a volcano, waterfalls and lava fields. Mainly driving, short walks and viewpoints. Started off fine but after 2 hours driving into the mountains on windy, narrow roads the cloud came down. Steve tried to keep going but it was so thick we could see nothing driving and so decision made to abandon the volcano and head back to the coast. An early lunch but still no change in the weather so the Grand Chalet waterfall was also abandoned. It was obvious you would be driving in very thick cloud long before you go to the waterfall.

Some interesting scenery on the coast – especially all the various lava fields from different eruption’s.