Ile de la Réunion (a.k.a. France)

Monday 14^th October. The laundry. Le Port, Réunion.

Alas “The laundry” isn't the latest hipster microbrewery, it's the place for washing clothes, which is my task for the morning. So I stuffed my backpack and bike panniers full of grotty clothing and cycled over to the other section of the marina to the laverie. I get to watch the miracle of a machine doing magic with water and soap so it's actually a bit of a treat.

Here we are in Europe! Politically at least, if not geographically. Ever heard of Réunion? Nope. Me neither before this trip which is a shame because it's a real little gem. It's basically one big volcano (maybe technically two) and it's part of France, like really part of France, not just an overseas territory or protectorate or former colony. Just full-on France (Outre Mer). Which means it's pretty civilised, has great roads, everyone drives Citroens and Peugeots and Renaults, everything closes for a couple of hours in the middle of the day so everyone can have a nice long lunch and a smoke, there are boulangeries and patisseries jam-packed with baguettes and croissants, there's an abundance of cheese (the good sort) and wine (with corks) in the supermarket and we've had to get used to riding our bikes on the right hand side of the road (with drivers who are extremely considerate of cyclists). And the Rugby World Cup is on free-to-air TV! So we've been pretty happy here so far.

There is also a little creole influence - I've seen ads with Kreol taglines, you hear some spoken on the street and lots of restaurants serve curry/stew with rice and a side of chilli/sambal. Weekend barbequeues in the park involve an open fire over which you cook up big pots of curry/stew.

We left Mauritius about a week and a half ago for the overnight sail to here. We had a lovely quick passage, flat sea, decent winds, hooning along at over 6 knots on a beautiful starry night and arriving the next morning. There was an amazingly strong smell of lush greenery on the approach, like actually being in the middle of a forest even while we were still several miles offshore.

Approaching Port de Pointe des Galets a.k.a. Port des Galets a.k.a. Le Port.

We had an extremely civilised arrival at a proper big marina with floating docks and lots of other boats and a million marina staff waiting to grab our lines and very friendly and efficient Douanes who checked us in with only three pieces of paper and no requirement for boat stamp usage. The marina here feels so much like being back in Mooloolaba or Cairns or Darwin that it's a little disconcerting. And some of the same boats from Darwin are here again to increase the feeling of familiarity.
The first few days we had the excitement of an Indian Warship being in port with lots of navy signal whistling, announcements over the ship P.A. and a major celebration including turning part of the boat into a nightclub. The navy seems to know how to party.
A local couple who live aboard at the marina were very excited to see our Australian flag and couldn't believe their eyes when they saw our home port was Mooloolaba – they are planning on sailing to Australia next year and had picked Mooloolaba (very sensibly) as a good looking spot to spend a couple of years.

Plenty of dogfriends around.

So how did a bit of France end up down here? I had to Google this because we seem to have completely avoided any sort of museum that would educate us. It seems to share an early history with Mauritius as a European colony in the business of making sugar with the help of slaves from Africa and indentured workers from Asia. I guess England wasn't interested in it after it got its hands on Mauritius so it stayed French and became a formal Department of France after WWII. Interestingly it was part of Vichy France until 1942 and was then taken over/invaded by Free French forces.

But this is an absolutely spectacular little island. We decided to treat ourselves to a 3 day mini-holiday and ended up extending it to 4 and we've still missed out on some parts of the island and on lots of interesting-sounding hikes. Day one of holiday (after spending the morning in the supermarket to take advantage of having a hire car to stock up) we explored the east coast and then drove up into the hills. This is the wet side of the island and it got greyer and damper and colder as we climbed higher.

Visiting up close the lighthouse at Sainte Suzanne that had kept me company on my nightwatch as we approached the island.

Driving in cloud.

There are green fields and cows and dairy farms. The town we stayed in (Bourg-Murat) felt a bit like being in a ski resort off season. It was COLD! The first bit of cold we've had since winter 2018. It was quite the shock. We coped by finding a cosy bar and a cosy restaurant where I nabbed a table by the fire. 

Little bit alpine circa 1970.

Impossible to resist?

Yes.

Next day we visited the volcano (Piton de la Fournaise), walking across a huge, old crater and up to a smaller newer one. Amazing.

Approaching the volcano, like driving on Mars (I imagine).

A winding descent down into the big crater.

Rock of every colour: black, blue, red, pink, peach, purple, grey, silver. The more recently active parts have no life at all, then you can see in slightly older parts some greenery starting to take hold and it getting quite lush in the oldest parts. 

That's cloud, not volcano steam.

Karl wanting to get too close to the bits you're not supposed to get close to.

And at the top we were in sunshine with cloud below us as far as the eye could see.

Reward picnic on the drive down from the volcano.

To recover from our first bit of cardio in many many months we stayed that night at St. Pierre, a beach town that had a lovely lively little vibe. 

Hotel on the beach, just what the doctor ordered.

We found a bar with live music which, apart from a couple of French songs, was the Benny Chen playlist. Made us feel at home. 

Morning stroll with a breakfast coffee.

The next day (after Karl failed to resist the French version of Bunnings) we drove what the guidebooks describe as the most spectacular road on the island (Route de Cilaos) and my goodness they're not exaggerating. 

"Mr. DIY". Disappointing absence of sausage sizzle though.

We found ourselves on a winding road (think Tour de France alpine stages) curling up along gorges and ridges and passing through tunnels. Occasional precariously perched villages. Dramatic green peaks. Neither words nor photos do it justice. Just come visit. No, do. 

Trying to capture the beauty out the car window.

The final day of mini-holiday had yet another supermarket run and then a visit to a beach town close by Le Port (St. Gilles). Lunch at a restaurant on the beach (literally on the beach by the way, sand underfoot) was so good Karl had to take a photo (and you know what he thinks of people who take photos of their food).

The pisoir wasn't so private.

It hasn't been all fun and games. There's been a couple of things to fix and organise, visits to to chandleries, riggers and hardware shops. Karl squeezing himself into tight corners and taking half the skin off his fingers.

Sometimes a man needs a travel hairdryer to get the job done.

So now we're trying to plan our departure: watching the weather, waiting for a part we ordered from Denmark to arrive, talking to other boats (the Dutch have already left, Anabel has already arrived in South Africa having skipped Réunion, us and the Finns and Estonians are ready for off, a singlehanded Canadian is waiting for another couple of weeks and a Swiss boat has just arrived) about what they think about the weather, remembering that Ireland are in the quarter finals (Rugby World Cup in case you've forgotten, meeting the All Blacks) this coming Saturday, e-mailing a sailor in Durban about the weather, doing laundry and stocking up on food. In the meantime we're just really enjoying being in Réunion. Karl is having a blast using his French and is actually doing quite well. He's working on changing his tendency to order twelve more beers when he wants two more. He has resisted the urge to surf because of the sharkiness - it's actually prohibited because of the amount of fatalities in recent years though a couple of dock neighbours do surf and they're still in one piece. The plan from here is to head out of the cyclone belt to South Africa - probably either Richard's Bay or Durban depending on weather conditions - where we'll stay for the rest of the year. Karl has strongly hinted, after seeing the bank balance, that I might want to go back to Australia to work for a bit. So if I manage to get a job I might be turning up in a town near you. Either way we'll be in Ireland from just after Christmas until early January. Yay!

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