Didn't sleep all that well due to the time zone change primarily plus I find that I often don't sleep particularly well the first night after taking a flight. Maybe my body is still trying to cope with the changes in oxygen levels ... who knows?

Woke up at about 6.30 am, repacked my bags & went down for their French breakfast buffet of breadsticks, cheese, fruit, yoghurt & pastries. Stole a few items to take with me & use for lunch later on (hey, what are buffets for?) then finished the last of the repacking, took my bag down to their storage area, jumped into a taxi & headed for Dos d'Ane ("doh darn").

Dos d'Ane is a tiny town, clinging to the top of the caldera. Sherry & I did a hike here previously as the locals had told us it was the best short hike in Reunion. This time, I wanted to start there & go exploring those magnificent mountains a little more so I have a rough plan of where I want to go but will just walk & see where the path takes me!

I'd been listing to Huckleberry Finn on audiobooks & felt a little like him setting off down the river to go & find some adventures, not knowing what I'd find or where I'd end up exactly.

By the time the taxi reached the top, we were in clouds & I felt sure I'd be pulling out my wet weather gear shortly after starting the hike as the clouds were looking ominously dark! The taxi's dash said it was about 25C outside ... quite pleasant for hiking down.

I found the start of the trail easily enough & for the first few hundred metres, it wove its way between the fences of small farms & properties up there, before starting the descent to the valley floor below, winding through the lush, green tropical forest.

It didn't take long before I popped out below the clouds & could see patches of blue sky above the lush mountains across the valley. "Maybe I won't get rained on after all," I thought. That would be good as I wouldn't get wet, but might be a whole lot hotter, especially down on the valley floor.

On the way down, I was hiking in the shade so didn't need my hat, yet the sweat was still constantly dripping off my face since the air was still and more humid than a swimming pool. "Hmm ... not a good sign," I thought!

I passed moss-covered rocks, vines, ferns & all kinds of tropical trees that were covered with lichen & fungi. Tiny birds of grey, black, brown and the occasional iridescent orange chirped their warnings at me as I passed, & every few metres, there were little rustles in the thick leaf litter that enveloped the sides of the path.

After a few pokes with my trekking pole, I discovered these rustles were coming from little brown frogs, perfectly camouflaged to hide amongst the leaves. I don't think I've ever hiked a path with so many frogs along it! Lucky they saw me & hopped out of the way because there's no way I could see them!

Down, down, down the path went, getting slightly warmer as it descended & the vegetation gave way to sunlight. Eventually, I came to the bottom and saw some signs advising of some cafes & houses up ahead. After 2.5 hours of trekking, this sounded quite delightful and I was looking forward to sitting down & enjoying a nice cold drink.

When I arrived, however, the gates were locked shut and there was no one to be seen. It seems very few other people want to hike around in this hot humid weather (hard to believe, I know) so they only open later in the season.

Nothing else to do then but keep going.

A few minutes later, I came to the first of 4 river crossings. Someone had kindly placed some large boulders across the stream to help hikers get across, but as it's the wet season, most of these were covered by water so weren't particularly useful other than to challenge your balancing skills!

Of course, by this time, a quick dip in the river was sounding absolutely lovely but given my history with rocks in this part of the world, an unplanned dip for my camera probably wouldn't be the smartest thing to do. I'd prefer not to kill two cameras here.

So I very carefully made my way across, using the trekking pole to provide additional balance. This worked well & I successfully made it all the way to the other side without falling in. As it was so hot, I took off my pack & emptied my pockets of anything I didn't want to get wet, then took a quick dip ... on purpose.

The cool water was so refreshing, I wanted to stay there for the rest of the day but alas, I still had 2/3 of the trail in front of me so I begrudgingly got out, reloaded myself & kept going. My wet t-shirt certainly wouldn't have won any competitions but it kept me a little cooler than before.

Somehow, when I got out the other side of the river, I lost the path. I could see on Google Maps that there should be a road up ahead but couldn't find the path up to it. I ended up down on my hands & knees, bush-bashing my way up a steep bank through the thick undergrowth.

By the time I emerged onto the road, my nice white t-shirt wasn't quite so white anymore! I now looked like a hot, sweaty, homeless guy that had just woken up from sleeping on the ground in a park! Great! Hope someone still lets me sleep in their BnB.

I continued on to the other river crossings, each with submerged boulders to varying degrees & stopped for lunch & then had a swim in my boxers & t-shirt at the last one (hardly anyone hiking the track today so not much risk of scaring anyone)!

After this, I began the long, slow, exceedingly hot & sweaty climb up 950m to Aurere. Originally I was planning to make Aurere my lunch stop as Google maps reckoned it should only take about 3.5 hours to hike there.

Not sure what planet Google is on but there's no way you could get from Dos d'Ane to Aurere (about 16km) in that time unless you were trail running. According to the trail markers, the hike from the river to Aurere alone should take 2.5 hours & the total time should be about 6 hours!

It was a constant climb, often in full sun and it didn't take long before I figured out I was rapidly running out of water & getting a headache from dehydration. I'd brought about 2.5L of water but realistically probably needed about twice this amount as sweat was constantly dripping out of every pore in my body. Every step saw more drips falling off my head & I constantly had to wipe the sweat off my head, just so I could see where I was going. I've never done a hike where I've sweated that much before in my life! OMG!

After a bit less than 2.5 hours, I thankfully reached the top & sat down to drink the last of my water rations as I was now only 15 minutes from Aurere & drinkable water.

I've never been so grateful to see civilisation again in my life!

Aurere is a tiny but pretty little town set high in the caldera. There are no roads to Aurere so all supplies have to be delivered via helicopter.

This means that it's extremely quiet, with the mountain air peppered only by bird songs, kids' laughter and the occasional whipper snipper.

It seems the main purpose of Aurere (& most of the towns in the Cirque) is to look after the needs of hikers ... though not much is open during the off-season.

Fortunately, I found somewhere that was open, had rooms available & even had staff who spoke English (double-bonus!).

After consuming about 3L of water, I settled into my room, had a very welcome & much-needed shower, then suddenly realised that my only non-disgusting pants were my weather-proof trousers. Shame I didn't think about what I was going to wear around the BnB a bit more!

I'm sure I looked a little odd wearing these with the bottoms rolled up but I wanted to dry my hiking pants, socks & boots since they were still wet from a mixture of my wading earlier & bucket loads of sweat oozing out of my legs.

I hung them up to dry, along with my other wet stuff after my shower ... totally in vain, as I found out the next morning!

Had a short rest then went in for dinner at 7.30 pm. There were only 5 of us there, an older couple (who spoke little English & the guy insisted on showing everyone his hairy chest by sitting with his shirt fully unzipped!) plus a younger couple of physiotherapists who were practising for the big across-island race (165km across the whole of Reunion where the fastest runners are expected to do it in 23 hours!)

Fortunately for me, the guy physio spoke English quite well so he regularly translated the conversation for me.

We had some nice rum-flavoured punch, plus some home-made, geranium-infused rum on its own (very nice). Oh, we also had some great food too, plus banana cake for dessert!

The rum took effect quickly and I started to get very sleepy. At about 10 pm, I went back to my room & fell asleep straight away.