Monday 17 June 2013

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.


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Saturday 8 June 2013

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 Reunion 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:

the view inland from Pierrefonds airport