With enough time before having to continue our voyage we flew home from Mauritius to see friends and family, have health checks and do plentiful boat kit shopping for spares, repairs and replacements. The clothes shops took a hit as well as it is not easy to get 100% cotton in SE Asia so we had been getting a little threadbare here and there.

The best, of course, was travelling about to see friends and family, and spending time at home with our daughter.

Storeton Woods, Wirral

The port (excitingly named Le Port) is not attractive or convenient for the shops but has the advantage of some good marine services and is good and secure. It was perfect for us as there is a sailmaker, electronics engineers, marine engineers, chandlery and dive shop all sited on the quay. We were able to have our VHF radio repaired which has been receiving but not transmitting. When in UK we bought a new VHF aerial thinking that it had been damaged during a tropical storm we encountered in Sulawesi but that didn't solve the problem so it is now a welcome spare. The electronics engineer ran tests and found a smallish part inside the radio to be faulty, we were lucky that he had the part in stock but unlucky with the cost which was a biggish shock. Well it works now which is comforting as our next port of call will be Richards Bay in South Africa so we are very glad to have it.  We have also had an extension made for the spray-hood. The sail-maker used our design to make up a set of side wings that can be removed in calm weather but will keep us drier in the cockpit when its really splashy. Yeah!

The real attraction of Reunion is the interior with absolutely stunning scenery and what must be some of the best walking terrain anywhere in the world.

There are flowers, fruits, shrubs and trees everywhere, some thousands of feet up the mountains, many that we had never seen before such as the takamaka and guinea fowl tree; goyavier fruit which is used to make confiture as well as eaten straight from the tree, and many blooms which line the upland paths in froths of colour.

Reunion has retained more of its natural forest than most other Indian Ocean islands because much of the land is impenetrable. Consequently the endemic fauna has fared quite well but large species of flightless birds, similar to the dodo and solitaire, have disappeared as their lowland forest habitat gave way to agriculture as well as providing an easy source of meat for the permanent human settlers who arrived in 1646. There never have been terrestrial mammals or amphibians on Reunion and of the known endemic reptiles just two colourful species of gecko survive. So no worries about poisonous snakes or infectious monkeys. Even the nettle species we encountered had no stings.

The centre of the island comprises three cirques with the highest peaks reaching over 10,000 feet. We got up to 8,000 and were able to look down into the cirques where tiny isolated hamlets can be seen.

A close up below shows the tiny white dots of houses far below.

These remote dwellings are the homes of the descendants of runaway maroons who escaped the slavery of the French sugar cane fields in the 18^th and 19^th centuries. The terrain is so difficult and the abodes so well disguised at that time that the bounty slave hunters never found them. Now they are still wild, extremely isolated and rather mystifying places. Life for the inhabitants is spartan as there is no electricity, mains water, sewerage or other services; there are no roads and it is said that the people who live in these cirques have never seen a car. They have seen helicopters though, which take in medical supplies and other essentials. These days one can walk into these areas using the 100s of kilometres of mountain footpaths that straddle the island and some walkers camp in the valleys which get very cold overnight, for others there are gites en route. There are rumours of witch craft and ancient rites surrounding some of these isolated communities and there have been murders in the distant past – all adds to the mysterious nature of the cirques.

On the coastal plain sugar cane predominates but in the mountains a wide variety of vegetables and fruits are grown particularly more tender vegetables and salad crops. In this case young pineapple plants cling to a tiny valley.

The traditional Creole houses are simple but elegant surrounded by well kept gardens full of flowers and especially Bougainvillea.

In the centre of the island there are still some of the original forests, thick with prehistoric tree ferns, it is like the land of the dinosaurs and here the understory was full of arum lillies.

Of course, one of the most atmospheric places on La Reunion is the volcano Piton de la Fournaise which has formed the island over the years and is one of the world's largest shield volcanoes. It still erupts regularly and apparently over 20,000 people came to see the 1998 eruption which devastated one small town. We didn't get to the crater as the weather was too bad but reached the moonscape area just below it.

We also walked across the lava flows at sea level but didn't linger.

Now our little hire car has gone back, we have a good 5 day weather forecast for starting the voyage to South Africa and Customs have just checked us out. Provisions are stowed and our harbour dues paid, all that remains is to collect our duty free fuel and a good night’s sleep, then its off for the next round in the morning.