I slept pretty well apart from a little yappy dog in the house next door that woke up twice during the night & was barking for about 20 minutes each time. Unfortunately, it didn't seem to wake the owners as there wasn't a sound from the house! Great!

I looked for it this morning so I could give it some of my wrath but couldn't see it anywhere. I was probably asleep ... little b******!

As there was more thunder, lightning & rain when it woke up, I just lay there for about 30 minutes, contemplating which of my wet clothes would be best to wear for today's hike.

It's actually just my hiking pants, socks & boots that are wet. My t-shirt is still dry plus I have another dry one to put on tomorrow

Breakfast this morning consisted of some French breadsticks, butter, some runny treacle stuff & bananas. I ended up making them into little banana splits which tasted remarkably good!

If I eat enough of these, hopefully, they'll be enough to keep me going until lunchtime today ... and hopefully, I can find somewhere that will serve me lunch!

For some reason, the water to my dorm room has been switched off so I'll need to figure out how to get it back on or find someone with a phone I can borrow as communicating this problem is beyond my sign language capabilities.

I let the owners know via translation but they didn't seem to think it needed fixing at that time so I paid up, packed my last few things & left.

It was a bit cooler today & I was feeling pretty good with all those banana splits under my belt. My hiking pants had dried off a little so things were looking good.

I climbed the first hill out of town & in only about 1 hour, I reached the top of a ridge overlooking a massive, deep gorge & could already see my destination over on the other side.

"There's no way it'll take me 3 hours to get over there!" I thought it myself.

Famous last words!

I hiked down to the bottom of the gorge, Crossed the river, hiked all the way back up again, then around the back of another hill, crossed Another river, then continued up another 200 vertical metres, through a lovely eucalyptus grove, before finally making my way into Roche Plate ... about 3 hours later!

As I was reaching the bottom of the gorge, it started raining again - just a light drizzle really but still enough to make everything wet, including me & everything I was wearing. If it wasn't so hot & humid, I'd put my wet weather gear on but if I do that, I'll be sweating even more & then my wet weather gear will be wet on both the inside & outside!

It's not pouring down so I just put my hat on to shield my eyes & continue hiking.

The funniest bit is when I take my boots off as my socks have been soaking my feet all day & the end up looking like two shrivelled up prunes! The downside of soaking your feet all day, however, is that they're more susceptible to blisters & rubbing, which you generally only find out about a few hours after you take them off!

When I was at the Aurere BnB, the owner showed me some edible berries that now grow wild all along the path. So I tried some of these as I hiked today.

They're an interesting mix of chalk, sweetness & bitterness. Quite juicy too and that made me wish I'd known about them on day one as they might have helped with my dehydration.

I picked a few handfuls & found that they're quite moorish, but then thought maybe I better not have too many. Too much fruit sometimes has a laxative effect ... something we definitely do NOT want out in the hiking trail!

I continued drinking lots of water today so avoided dehydration again (also helped that it wasn't quite so hot & the hike was just over 4 hours). I also moved my heavy battery pack from my backpack into my pocket to try & cut down the weight on my shoulders.

I'm not whether it was the combination of these changes or the fact that this is my third day of hiking & my muscles are getting stronger but today I found the hill climbs a little easier. I'm still not exactly racing up them as some are incredibly steep, but they were a little easier.

That's somewhat comforting as tomorrow will be the steepest & most consistent climb out of all 4 days. We'll see whether I'm still feeling stronger by the end of that one!

The clouds were starting to rapidly roll in & I was feeling pretty soaked so upon reaching the town (of <100 people!), I went into the first BnB ("chambres te table") I found & since it looked very nice & the rates were pretty standard, I located an owner & booked in.

At the moment, I'm the only person here but that might change tonight.

The owner spoke a little English so between my poor French & her poor English, we didn't need Google Translate this time.

The first order of the day was a shower, of course, to remove the day's sweat & sunscreen & make myself slightly presentable again.

Next, I inquired about some lunch. It seems that all the places here do breakfast & dinner but no one ever does lunch. It's a bit weird as they also don't give you the option of taking anything with you to eat for lunch so I don't know what everyone else does.

She kindly made me some 2-minute noodles, with some tomato sauce on the side in its own little container, just to make it fancy. Whereas we would probably just hand someone the sauce bottle, the French always place much more importance on making things look good, even in a budget BnB!

One of the other owners brought out a book about the Cirque de Mafate & it was interesting to browse this over lunch. I surprised myself by how much of the French I could mostly understand.

Lying on my bunk bed after lunch, the clouds continued to roll in & thicken, so much so that I could see the clouds pouring into the room through my open window!

A few interesting facts about Réunion:

• It's actually the top of one giant mountain that rises 5,000m from the floor of the Indian Ocean.
• There are three cirques: Salazie (population approx 6,500), Cilaos (population 5,000) and Mafate, where I am (population 650). The reason the other two have so many people is that they're connected to the rest of the island via roads, whereas Mafate isn't. The little towns in this cirque are all serviced only by helicopters & hikers.
• Most of the towns are called "Ilet ___" which translates to "islets". The reason for this is that they exist on the tiny pieces of flat ground (islands) within the cirque's peaks & valleys.
• All three cirques are joined in the middle by Réunion's highest mountain: the Piton de Nieges which is just over 3,000m tall (a climb for another visit when it's not quite so humid!)
• The three cirques were originally part of one giant volcano which exploded many thousands of years ago, dumping ash & debris all over the region (yes, we've even recorded some in Australia!). Some people estimate that the volcano might have been taller than Everest before it exploded!
• Mafate was originally settled by runaway slaves who found the inaccessibility of its interior quite helpful in avoiding those seeking the 30-pound reward offered for runaway slaves found dead or alive.
• There's still a moderately active volcano on the southern end of the island, Piton de Fournaise which erupts every few years, just after they've dug a new road through the previous lava flow!
• There are no native edible fruit trees on the island, although there are plenty of ones that have been introduced. I've passed about 100 wild mango trees plus about 500 of the chalky blackberry trees. There's only one palm that produces some fruit, but no one eats this as it's disgusting apparently. I didn't try that one!

I rested my sore muscles for a while before dinner then heard "Monsieur, monsieur!" letting me know it's ready.

I was the only guest in the whole place last night, though I'm not sure they really realised this as they'd cooked enough for about 5 people!

The food was very nice, traditional Réunion food except surprisingly no lentils this evening!

I ate most of my dinner by myself but the two owners came in towards the end & we chatted as best we could using my limited French & their limited English.

Leah & Mark (that's what I'm going to call him as his French name sounds a bit like this but is longer & more complicated) have been here for one year and Mark works for the National Forests Department. I didn't attempt to tell them what I do for work!

We chatted about the paintings on the wall, large murals that had been done by school children of the local plants & animals. Surprisingly, many of these have similar English & French names.

After a while, we ran out of things to say & communication got too hard so we all said bon nuie (goodnight) and I was asleep by about 8.30 pm!