Press article round-up

Here's a (non-exhaustive) round-up of some general travel articles about Reunion that have been published in the written press over the past dozen or so years.

Sweet Reunion and Ten Things You Must Do In La Réunion - Daily Express, June 22nd 2013

Heaven's hotspot - (South African) Sunday Times, February 26th 2012

in the cirque of Cilaos (photo © Daniel Born)

Belle Réunion - Australian Gourmet Traveller, February 2012

A little bit of France in the Indian Ocean - The Times, October 15th 2011

A rum do on Reunion Island - New Zealand Herald, July 28th 2011

Vive vanilla on Reunion - The Australian, May 14th 2011

Vanilla, coffee and spices are the prized products on
Reunion Island. (Picture: © Jo Kerozen / Wikipedia)

Adventure Island hits the mark - Adelaide Now, March 19th 2011

Reunion on volcanic island - Queensland Times, March 9th 2011

Grande Passion - Condé Nast Traveller, 2010

Peak season: Indian Ocean adventures in La Réunion - The Independent, April 11th 2009

French Toast - The Scotsman, February 2nd 2008

Joyful Reunion - Daily Mail, August 22nd 2007

Short Breaks - in search of plant life in Reunion - The Independent on Sunday, January 18th 2004

Spice Island and How Reunion brought vanilla to the world - The Independent, December 6th 2003

Island rendezvous - The Guardian, July 23rd 2003

"A million miles from Paris ...
it's easy to while away the
afternoon lounging under a tree".

Blown Away by a Rugged Beauty - 'The Telegraph', October 24th 2001

Réunion: It's France, but not as we know it - The Independent, August 13th 2001

Under the Volcano - 'Time' magazine, April 16th 2001

Gallic charm in a tropical setting - The Telegraph, April 4th 2001

See also:

Le Monde Diplomatique timeline of Reunion's history (in English):  Island Past

The French empire strikes back - The Sunday Times, January 3rd 2010, with a translation into French. (Article written by Rosie Millard, who wrote Bonnes Vacances! A Crazy Family Adventure in the French Territories and filmed "Croissants in the Jungle" with her husband for The Travel Channel).

Do you know of any other articles you'd like to see added to this list?

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Pic Adam

Pic Adam is a summit in the highlands above Saint Denis, culminating at 1184 metres. It takes its name from the grandson of Admiral Bouvet, (a former governor of the Mascarene Islands), who was ruined after setting up an optical telegraph with Mauritius.

side view of Pic Adam seen from St François

The area it is located above is called Bois de Nèfles, and it's well-known for its pineapple cultivation.

pineapple field

a young pineapple just starting to grow

When you start walking you very quickly come to a fork in the path, where you can decide to hike up to the Roche Ecrite if you wish (2276 metres). We wanted a shorter hike so we followed the path to the left.

Sign at the path fork, indicating Roche Ecrite to the right.

shrine by the path side

After a few minutes walking you arrive at a picnic area.

Picnic area, Pic Adam

picnic area, Pic Adam

Reunion stone-chat / Saxicola tectes / tec-tec

large aloe by the side of the hiking path

part of the Pic Adam hiking path (source)

undergrowth

wild passion fruit (poc-poc)

After about 50 minutes of hiking a sign lets you know that you're nearly at the summit viewpoint.

The views from the summit are great, especially on a clear day, like the one we had.

central Saint Denis

Ravine des Patates à Durand, Saint Denis/Ste Clotilde

looking east over Sainte Marie and Sainte Suzanne

The whole hike - to the viewpoint and back - is quite short. The distance of 4 kilometres took us a leisurely 90 minutes.


If you enjoyed this you might also like:

• Aurère & the Sentier Augustave
• Cayenne hike
• Hike from Le Belier to Hellbourg
• Hiking in the shadow of the volcano
• Hiking the 3 cirques
• Hiking the Canalisation des Orangers
• Hiking Piton des Neiges from Cilaos
• Maïdo & Petite France
• Morne de St François & Le Brulé 
• Plaine des Palmistes to Plaines des Cafres via Piton Textor
• Trekking the volcano

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Skydiving - getting high over Reunion

Skydiving. Jumping out of a plane and hoping that a few strings and a piece of material are going to stop you falling to earth. It's not for me (I prefer diving), but my husband recently did his first ever parachute jump and loved it.

In Réunion all parachuting is done at Pierrefonds airport in the south, near St Pierre (Réunion's other airport, Roland Garros at Ste Marie has too much air traffic). All jumps take place at the island's only civilian skydiving club: the Paraclub de Bourbon (the video above and all photos below are courtesy of the club).

the Paraclub's plane: a Pilatus Porter

Pilatus PC-6 Porters, like that of the Paraclub, are single-engined short take-off and landing utility aircraft.

Skydiving is very much dependent on the weather - if there's too much wind the plane doesn't take off.

the airfield windsock, (but more modern methods
are now used to check wind speed)

The plane takes about 10 or 15 minutes to climb up to ≈4000m altitude, and the views over the south of Reunion are amazing.

St Pierre town

Your first jump is always in tandem, with an instructor. Once the plane has reached the correct altitude it's time to jump.

Initially a small drogue parachute is deployed to reduce terminal velocity while you free-fall for 50 seconds at a speed of 200km/h.

At 1500m altitude the instructor deploys the main canopy, and it then takes you several minutes to float gently back to earth.

the canopy unfurls

The area above and around where you expect to land is known as the drop zone.

coming into land.

Useful links:

• Paraclub de Bourbon (in French)

the view inland from Pierrefonds airport

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