Komodo
Kit and Natasha made it to Bali for about 8pm on Saturday, so we were able to have drinks together before an early start for Komodo the next morning. A flight of a little over an hour took us to Labuan Bajo, at the western end of Flores island. We were met and taken to the port, from where we travelled by boat for about 3/4 hr to the island of Seraya kecil, our home for the next 4 nights.
We arrived there about 12.30, so we had a good long afternoon to settle in and enjoy relaxing on the beach. There’s little else there, but it was a beautiful spot, the staff were very friendly and there was the opportunity to take out kayaks or go paddle boarding or snorkelling if just sitting reading began to pale.
On Tuesday we had organised a trip around the Komodo National Park - for some reason a UNESCO World Heritage site. We went by boat straight from our island hotel, and after retracing our route to Labuan Bajo to pick up permits for the park, we carried on to our first stop at Padar Island. We climbed a lot of steps to the summit with fantastic views across the island as we climbed.
We had seen photos of the view above in the guidebook, but obviously taken at the end of the dry season when the land looked pretty arid. We have arrived at the tail end of the rainy season, and it is lovely to see everything looking so green.
From there to swim at Pink Beach, so named because of the red coral which has broken down and coloured the beach vaguely pink. And from there to Komodo island itself to see the Komodo dragons. We saw 4 adults and 1 juvenile. Amazing creatures, apparently unchanged for 4 million years.
After a picnic lunch, we carried on to a wonderful reef where we could snorkel above the beautiful corals and tropical fish. Then to Manta Point, where manta rays are known to congregate at a cleaning station where they are cleaned by small fish. We were able to snorkel with the manta rays and probably saw about 20 of them over 2 ‘dives’. There was quite a strong current in this area, so we were dropped off by the boat at one point and picked up ‘downstream’. We were able to just float past them and all agreed this was the highlight of the day…but unfortunately no photos! The picture below gives an impression of the beautiful marine landscape we spent the day in.
