Day 5 - A day at the beach

After having stretched our legs on day 4, we though a day at the beach was a good way to relax.
Well, in fact, we went to 3...
All the Beaches on Reunion Island are on the west coast. Etang-salé, a black sand beach, is the first beach you get to when you travel north along the coast from where we were staying. The sand can get very hot in the sun, so we quickly made our way from the shade of the trees to the waters edge for a walk along the beach, watching the amazing waves break while surfers try to ride them.
You may have gathered that Réunion Island is a relatively new volcanic island. This means that the natural colour for sand to be here is black (with a tint of green!). There are only a couple of "white" sand beaches made from coral breaking up.
Next we went to Saint-Leu, world famous for is surf (a rare left hand breaking wave...) It also has a nice, quiet lagoon and beach. The sand is ... well gray I suppose! We had a nice swim in the warm sea, then some lunch and a snooze under the shade of the "Filaos" (Standard beach tree).
Next we moved on to L'hermitage: This is were Tim would go to for a day out to the beach when he was small. The sand here is closer to white, with a very big coral lagoon. The 2-3 meter waves breaking breaking on the reef are just a rumble in the distance, and all that remain of them lap the beach gently. Time for an other swim with the fishes, then a lie-down on the beach to read.
We left for home when we felt like it, and only after having an ice cream.

Day 5 pictures