Time is flying here in Reunion and by now we have had many local creole dishes and plenty of local Dodo beer...Bernie loves the stuff! He reckons its better than our local beers...
We spent our fourth day in Reunion visiting a local Rhum factory...yes, a rhum factory... Its owned bya Rotary friend and had to be visited! They essentially use locally produced fruit, extract the juice and distill it till its potent enough and then they add the alcohol to it...some mean stuff! Check out some of the piccies... they celebrate their 100th year in 2007!
- the mixing and creating process...a 100 year old family secret...
- the distilling process...
- the bottling and labelling process
- et voila! what you see in the shop...and we got some to bring home with us...if it make it home...
Of course being in Reunion means that it get seriously humid during the day and that meant that we had to spend some time on the beach! what a life... We drove out towards the town of St Gilles for a glorious hour or two on the beach...Josie and Helmien was in heaven! They have a dangerous rip current at the beach, so swimming was limited to a small area.
Just to give you a little taste of what it looked like...
Rotary in Reunion is divided into the North and the South, one District Governer and two assisting District Governers, one each for the two areas. In the evening we did our second last presentation in the North, to the St Denis Rotary Club, who celebrates their 10th year this year!
We were at our best even though we had limited time, we had the advantage of having a digital data projector and loudspeakers, which made the world of difference!
Here we are in action to a room full of Rotarians.
- Bernie smooching the audience...
- Helmien attracting a lot of monsieur attention...
- Alistar looking all professional...
And in true Rotary tradition, our presentation was followed by the exchanging of the Club flags! Here Josie, our admirable Team Leader, is exchanging club flags with the St Denis Club president.
They loved us and we had an amazing time in their company, kind people with great hearts.
A day well spent in the Isle de la Reunion!
We'll be back with more!
Au revoir, a bien toit!
love and light,
The Team!
