This morning energetic Jeff went off to the gym and for a walk while I rolled over and caught a few more zzzzzs. Only ended up making it to breakfast 30mins before it closed haha.

After stuffing ourselves we visited the friendly concierge and booked on a couple of tours . Hope the weather plays nice and we can actually go on them.

Finally, just before noon we headed off in our hire car for a drive around the other side of the island and up into the cirque of Salazie and the mountain village of Hellbourg. Really good roads here. The west side of the island has a dual carriage freeway along the entire edge. It's very mountainous in Reunion due to three extinct volcanoes forming cirques right in the middle resulting in over 200 micro climates. No wonder it's hard to predict the weather. Also makes for stunning scenery driving on the small band of flat land around the edge and then looking up to the mountains towering over you. Reminds us a bit of Switzerland as there are houses in the flat and then also up on the mountain plateaus. And we just saw someone parasailing so yep, very like Switzerland!

The drive up to Hellbourg was "hell pretty". Felt like we were driving into Jurassic Park with steep mountains towering on either side of the valley, dozens of waterfalls, lush tropical vegetation everywhere and creepers taking over entire mountainsides. Lending to the Jurasic feel were the many massive spiders everywhere too. Eeeps

The road was a bit hairy towards the end with lots of twists and turns and road edges that either dropped 1 meter straight into a gutter or off the edge of the mountain entirely . Either way, plenty of incentive to drive sedately and stay on the road! At one stage the road even passed under a waterfall! Well, really it passed under a massive rock overhang and water was pouring off that. It was a waterfall ok? Good.

We arrived in Hellbourg and oh my, what a cute little place. The whole village is full of Creole style buildings made from wood with decorative carved trims on verandas. The main structures are painted one colour and then the shutters and trim painted in contrast. Lots of pinks and blues and greens with white. Very pretty indeed.

After having a bit of a look around the village we stopped for some Creole Cari for a late lunch. Chicken and lychee with rice and lentils for me, and for Jeff, what he thought was meant to be all vegies but turned out to be mystery meat (even after eating it he still didn't know what it was) with something that was described as "like a potato but not a potato", plus the rice and lentils. Actually pretty tasty and a lot better than the dead Dodo debacle meal in Mauritius.

Started to rain more heavily (damn it) obscuring the mountains and views. Did a little souvenir shopping in the hopes the weather would clear. It didn't.

So we headed home down that lovely twisty road in what felt like a monsoon. Several drivers had even pulled over to wait it out it was that bad at times. Such dramatic weather differences. This morning at our hotel it was sunny and 31. Up in the mountains it was 23 and yet again, pouring.

Eventually made it back to Gilles Saint Baines and decided to look for dinner in town instead of paying an inflated price at the resort (buffet dinner last night cost EUR 90!).

Had a nice traditional Reunion meal of pizza but we did buy it from a dodgy little sidestreet outlet so that's "local".

Followed up with homemade boules of icecream as we strolled the boardwalk and then home to bedfordshire.