Le Repaire Hotel
The hotel is about 400 metres from the ferry port. They offer to collect you and your luggage from the ferry. We had arranged this through the hotel, but nobody turned up - if you book here I would suggest you email the day before to confirm that they will pick you up. Most hotels have electric golf carts for guests, but not this one. They transport your bags in a tricycle. And when it rains the tricycle man refuses to pedal. A problem that we encountered when leaving
Our room, a superior beachfront on the first floor, was excellent, and had a huge balcony. The daily servicing of the room was spotty. Most days they did not clean the room until well into the afternoon. Breakfast is adequate, but not gourmet, but is very scenic due to the abundance of colourful birds. .
The position on the beach is wonderful. Though there are not enough beach chairs, and some of those are taken by non-guests - the hotel does not police them. And there was a fair amount of "towels on sunbeds" before breakfast by a number wasof guests - net result was that sometimes it was difficult to get a suitably placed sunbed. There are two small pools and a very well kept garden There was some building work going on at the neighbouring property which did not really trouble us.
We walked to the Union Plantation in15 minutes and then on to Anse Argent. The hotel organised an electric golf cart tour of the island - La Digue is so small that you can see everything this way in a couple of hours. We could have hired a bike/trike, but the hotel receptionist thought that a trike would have been too dangerous for Chris
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Round the Island by Golf Cart
As it was not really practical for Chris to try to cycle round the island, we got the hotel to organise a tour by golf cart. Apart from 6 licensed taxis and some delivery lorries, private cars are not allowed on La Digue. Unfortunately the transport we had 50 years ago, the Oxcart, has all but disappeared, there being now only one left in operation, following complaints from tourists on animal cruelty
The tour took about 2 hours and in fact covered all the island, from the high view point, on all the driveable roads, and over the mountains to Grand Anse
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Union Plantation and Anse d'Argent
This is the place I remember being taken by oxcart from the Lindblad Explorer 50 years ago. The whole area is owned by the Union Plantation (Seychelles Government) including the access to the beach, so it has been preserved.
We enjoyed the cocktails at the Old Jetty Cafe, which is also part of the estate.
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Fish Trap Restaurant
We enjoyed going along the road for their Happy Hour most nights - an excellent Mango Mohito
I cannot claim Tony Blair was there on any of the nights we were, but he obviously has visited,
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Seychelles Paradise Black Flycatcher Sanctuary
We walked to this small nature reserve, the Veuve Reserve. It is the breeding ground of the Seychelles Paradise Flycatcher - a rare and endemic species with a deep blue colour. The striking long black tail of the male also brought about the name "vèv" ( widower) for the species. It was discovered in 1860 on Praslin, where the birds once prevailed, before being found on Curieuse, Félicité, and La Digue.
The Vev thrives in tall forest of native trees (takamaka and bodanmyen), especially on the plateau of La Digue. It feeds on insects, flying to catch them in mid-air or pick them from underneath leaves. La Digue has rats and cats and plenty of human activities but despite this, numbers of this bird have increased in recent years, perhaps because people stopped killing them. The original goal was to increase the number of breeding populations to three, and to be able to reclassify the species from Critically Endangered to Vulnerable on the IUCN's Red List of Threatened Animals
Only in the 1960s did it become clear how much the number of these birds had shrunk, so something was done to save the species from extinction. In order to survive, the birds require insects and rich vegetation. Due to deforestation or alterations made by the cultivation of plants, it was decided to create a protective refuge for the birds. In 1982, the 21-hectare Veuve Reserve was born. There are several rangers who guard the area and bird experts who monitor the development of the birds, along with turtles, swiftlets, and other bird species. In the information centre at the main entrance we found bored rangers who did not register our existence, the displays were non existent.
There are believed to be about 210-278 birds left in the world.
So we walked round, but did not manage to actually see any of these birds, but happily the web has lots of photos, so at least I know what I should have seen.
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