Reunion Day 14

Hi everyone,
We've now been in La Reunion for two weeks.  We had planned to depart on Thursday but I came down with the flu.  We now plan to depart on Monday.

On Tuesday we headed off on our road trip.  We drove to the town of Plaine de Palmistes and from there up the forestry road towards Belouve.  We did a 4km roundtrip walk through the forest which was quite nice.

Creek in the rain forest

After the walk we drove back to Plaine de Palmistes then to Takamaka.  From there we did another short walk.  There is a hydroelectric plant in this area and one can see why - there are many tall waterfalls.

View from Takamaka

Two of many waterfalls near Takamaka

From Takamaka we returned to Plain des Palmistes and drove all the way up the forestry road to Belouve.  The Belouve forest is primarily comprised of tamarind trees which are a type of acacia.  Apparently the tamarind evolved from an acacia found in Hawaii which in turn evolved from Australian acacias.  No one knows precisely how they got from A to B.

"View" from the gite on Tuesday afternoon

The Belouve gite (hostel) is very nicely situated at the top of a mountain.  When we arrived the mountain was shrouded in cloud.  There is a good boardwalk display area which explains the history of forestry and conservation in the area.  There is an excellent display at the old cable car hut which describes the cable car which used to run from Belouve down to near Hell Bourg in the valley below.

Our dormitory building at the gite

We had an excellent dinner at the gite.  The dormitories were clean and the beds comfortable.  With my flu developing rapidly we decided to cut short our trip so headed back to Le Port on Wednesday morning.

View from the gite on Wednesday morning

Boats are departing the marina regularly now - one or two each day.  It's fun saying "see you in Africa".