Driving across the Plaine de Remparts – La Reunion

The Indian Ocean Island of La Reunion offers amazing mountainous landscape. It is definitive a place to visit if you are keen on hiking. Together with a friend I went back to the island in April / May this year. The last time I was here, was 20 years ago. It was wonderful to be back. La Reunion is a French overseas department. It should be easy to reach the island by plane from France. I visited from Mauritius which is the neighbouring island and only a 45-minute flight away. Since Mauritius has the beaches and La Reunion the mountains, they make a good combination.

Hopefully, the photos will give you an idea of how beautiful the landscape is. All of these were taken on our second day of driving. Our first night was spend in the mountains in the small village Hell-Bourg. The next day we drove across the plateau called Plaine des Remparts. The road zigzags from the seaside up to a hight of close to 2000 m. above sea level.

Our goal was to reach our next overnight stay in Bourg Murat. This village is located close to the volcano Piton de la Fournaise. Our third day was spend hiking the volcano. Because we had to start the volcano hike early in the morning, it made sense to overnight as close as possible.

Because we still had some hours before we could check in, we continued along the forest road towards the volcano. When we came to the viewpoint at the “top of the gorge”, we made a stop here before returning. The gorge is huge. The deep cliffs have been carved by rivers during hundreds of years. To stand up here looking towards the sea offers amazing views.

This was our ending point that day. It was already late in the afternoon when we returned along the forest road to Bourg-Murat.