Up early today and went for a 5km walk along the beach at 7am, followed by a swim in the lagoon to cool off. The lagoon water was so incredibly clear and calm that it was easy to see the fish and coral without a mask. We even saw a little eel in some coral only a meter or two from the beach.

While walking we also saw a colony of nesting Cardinals in the trees just past the boundary for our resort . They're clever little things, building hanging nests woven from sticks. They're also incredibly noisy and we're both quite glad our room is nowhere near them. They were going off more than the lorikeets at Perth airport!

After breakfast we drove up to a village called Dos d'Ane as we'd heard about an easy 3km walk with great views over Mafate (another of the cirques). We learnt from yesterday and took photos as we went while the sun was out. The first viewpoint at Cap Noir was knock your socks off drop dead gorgeous. The mountain peaks are so steep and razor edged. Really quite stunning and also peaceful with birds twittering around. Extremely Jurassic Park like.

After taking many, many photos we continued on to do the 3km loop trail towards Roche Verre Bouteille which means green glass or something.

So the track ... even though only 3kms and advertised as taking 1.5 hrs, the concierge at our hotel had told us to allow 3hrs . Yep. That should have been a giveaway. Though not technically difficult, I found the track very challenging in terms of height phobias with lots of narrow paths with nothing between you and a very long drop other than some plants and more often just thin air. 5 metal ladders up rock faces, 3 ladders down.

Got to the Verre thingo and it was totally shrouded in cloud. Sigh. Still felt good to get there though as that was (mostly) the end of the up, up, up part. After the Verre what's it the track seemed to go up to nowhere along a narrow ridge and just cloud on either side. I was not happy. Eventually after walking it for another 10 minutes I decided to believe it was going back to the start and not off on the 4 day circuit.
Lots of spiders. Massive ones. When hikers go missing it's not that they've fallen off a cliff. It's that a spider has eaten them!

So our easy 3km hike ended up taking the predicted 3 hours. Apparently there's a race where competitors run over the mountains from St Dennis in the north to St Pierre in the south - and they do it in 24hrs . Over terrain like this?? It seems impossible to us.

Rewarded our sweaty selves with a patisserie snack on the drive down. Using my mangled French I accidentally asked for a chocolate chat (chocolat cat) instead of chocolate chaud (hot chocolate). Girlie had the good grace not to laugh.

After cleaning up at our hotel we decided to drive to St Pierre for dinner. Nice waterfront there with plentiful cats and a lovely view but otherwise seedy and not as clean as Saint Gilles. Interesting almost communal toilets at the harbour (and the US worries about allowing trans people into their chosen sex toilet. Pffft)

Walked a lot looking for a nice place for dinner. Bailed on tourist trap cockroach palace and went to a nice Creole restaurant instead (got there in the end).

End of the day.
22,500 steps, 17km, 370m elevation gain (102 floors), 5 ladders on side of mountain, 3hrs to do 3kms around the hills. Sherry totally knackered and even Jeff had the good grace to look slightly tired.