Réunion, December 2019 − Travels − Captain Tom

Réunion, December 2019

We seek for some warm sun as usual over the Christmas holidays. This time we choose Réunion, a little French island in the Indian ocean about 600 miles east of Madagascar.

Réunion is a volcanic island and there are three old craters and an additional very active volcano erupting several times a year. And another remarkable point: The East of the island where the active volcano is located is one of the most rain-laden places on earth.

The hotel is on the Western side of the island. There it is almost dry and sunny.

1 The Journey

The journey is quite exhausting. First you go to Paris and then have a more than 11 hours domestic flight directly to Réunion.

Airport Paris Charles de Gaulle

The airport is quite big

A Boeing 777-300ER of Air Austral brings us to Réunion

Departure in Paris

Land ahoy

Saint-Denise, capital city of Réunion

Arrived

2 The Hotel

The Hotel Le Recife is located at the Western shore and it is warm and sunny most of the time.

Views of the resort

View from my room

Breakfast area

Air vehicles passing by

Even when raining it is quite warm

The beach

Lifeguards

Warning sign in the water

The hotel from above

Sunset

Coast line at the hotel

For the holidays there are exhaustive dinners with many courses

Christmas Eve

Cocktails to start New Year's Eve

3 Animals

There are nice animals around

Big sassy birds

The little one seems to have dropped from the nest to early

Lizzard with long tail

Lizzard

Lizzards

Bird with very long tail

Red bird

Even inspects our breakfast

4 Gyrocopter flight

I fly with a gyrocopter with Zen Altitude ULM in Saint Piere (Pierrefond). The gyrocopter is an ELA 07 Cougar. Quite exciting. I have not done it before. We fly along the coast line as a circle around the volcano does not work due to the weather conditions.

Preparations

I am ready

Take off

The airport

Along the coast line

Volcanic shore

Paragliders at Saint-Leu

They get quite close to us

The shore

Stream mouth

Our hotel

Les Trois-Bassins

Gorge

Sugar cane plant

We fly in quite from the side

Dad is waiting

5 Mountain tour

After the gyrocopter flight we go with the rental car into the mountains. I have selected two points where we have a view into the craters of the old volcanos.

Fenêtre des Makes allows for a view into the crater Cirque de Cilaos

Mountain roads

Cirque de Cilaos

Cap Noir allows for a view 3000 ft down into Cirque de Mafate

Cirque de Mafate is like Grand Canyon in green

Cap Noir

Cirque de Mafate

6 Volcano tour

We want to go to the active volcano Piton de la Fournaise. The volcano is located on the Eastern coast and it is quite rainy there. An in almost 9000 ft of elevation it will get cold too.

The first attempt fails. There is so much rain even at the coast that we do not dare to get into the mountains.

Second attempt. It is still heavily raining but not as much as the first time. But we will not see the volcano

Rain

Lava

Waterfalls in the rain

Scenery like on planet Mars

Other visitors

Belvédère du Nez-de-Bœuf

Notre Dame des Laves is supposed to be a miracle as lava has found it way around it instead of destroying it.

New territory as result of the eruption in 1977 which did spare Notre Dame des Laves

Lava fields

Lava from the most recent eruption this year is still steaming.

Cars have Réunion on the license plate.

7 Helicopter flight

We fly with Helilagon. The weather prevents again a flight around the active volcano and we do a loop into Cirque de Mafate instead.
We fly with an Aérospatiale AS350 with four passenger seats.

The Heli