Reunion
29th March 2014
Today we docked near to St. Denis on the
north coast of this French island. Our
eight hour tour was entitled Volcanic Experience.
Our journey began with a drive along the
west coast of the island, with views over the coastline on one side and views
of the mountains on the other.
At St. Pierre we turned inland and slowly
climbed up the valley towards the volcano, noting the change in landscape as we
progressed.
In the middle of the island we turned on to
a narrow road and climbed for 10 kilometres around many 180 degree hairpin
bends through thick misty conditions, climbing to 2500 metres, where we had our
first sight of the Piton de la Fournaise, a relatively young volcano – only
60,000 years old, which last erupted in 2007.
We then drove across the crater floor to a
further viewing point, where we could view the very top of the crater, which
unfortunately was shrouded in cloud. We
saw many hikers walking in the crater before they were obscured by cloud that
had drifted in. We then retraced our
tracks back down along the winding road to a restaurant, where we were treated
to a typical Creole lunch, which consisted of a starter of palm hearts, which
were really delicious, followed by spicy beef and/or fish curry, with kidney
beans and rice along with a bottle of red wine.
All very tasty.
Reluctantly we rejoined the coach to drive
back down to the east coast of the island.
En route we stopped to view a forest of Tasmanian Tree Ferns, quite an
amazing sight.
Our guide, who was French and spoke little
English kept us amused throughout the journey with his anecdotes. He decided we had time to call in to St.
Denis on the way back to walk through the town and see its historical
buildings. On the final journey to the
port the guide gave us a rendition of Reunion’s National Anthem. However, he slightly misjudged the time and
we arrived late back at ship as they were dismantling the gangway ready for
departure.
An excellent day.
