Komodo

Sadly our last day with excursions. Tomorrow we sail all day today to Bali. A highlight of this trip for me is our visit to Komodo Island to hopefully see the Komodo dragons. We are fortunate the captain tells us, because of the rough sea from Lombok there are very few tourists on the island today apart from ourselves. I am quite pleased that we will disembark at 7:40 a.m. and so will be walking in the cooler part of the day. We walk for about an hour and seen only one other group of young tourists who are on a boat for four days sailing around the area. A cheaper option than ours, apparently they sleep on the deck. There is some tree cover, however, at this time of the year the trees have no leaves. It reminds me of looking for animals in Africa, where animals are easier to see when trees have no leaves, birds and animals are still well camouflaged. We walk for about half an hour before we see much at all. This shouldn't be a surprise given it's a very large island and although there are 5000 + Komodo dragons on the island the paths only cover a small area. Our guide takes a detour off the main path because he has spotted a very young Komodo dragon in the bush. I catch a glimpse of it. It is quite small about a meter in length and moving very quickly, very hard to see because it merges with the color of the trees. Our guide says it is probably about 5 years old. When they hatch there are many predators and so head they up into the trees for protection. Once they get to a reasonable size almost nothing will touch them.

As we walk further I can hear birds, in particular, I hear cockatoos very similar to ours, but the call is a little different. When I finally see one, I can see that it is smaller than our sulfur crested cockatoo, but it is nonetheless a cockatoo. We also see two colorful birds high up in a tree they are a beautiful yellow. Too far away to take any photographs. We are told these are Orioles. The walk is very pleasant. Still humid but not uncomfortable, the path is well made and for most of the walk we don't see many people. The dragons eat wild boar and buffalo both are feral and red deer introduced from Java. We do see a couple of pigs and a lot of deer. Dragons swallow their prey whole, including deer.

As we get near to the end there is excitement. Finally, a very large komodo dragon has been sighted. It's still quite cool at this time of day for dragons so they're not inclined to move much which is very convenient for taking photos. Possibly also digesting food. It is huge. There are a large number of dragons on the island but that doesn't guarantee seeing any. Our guide told me that yesterday people didn't see any at all. We see two more before the end of the walk, both were quite a bit smaller and again not moving much. If they have eaten they won't be moving either. Other people were more lucky and saw a couple of smaller dragons moving.

One of the other passengers said he saw a reef shark off the jetty where we were walking. On the way back I see coral The water is not very deep, there are lots of small fish and a few leaping out of the water suggesting a predator nearby. I stood and watched for a while and saw a very small reef shark, probably about half a meter to a meter in length.

After lunch we are to go to a beach for a final snorkel. We are told that the beach we are going to is not the most popular 'pink' beach because it is likely to be full of tourists. However, the rough sea also means there are no tourists on the pink beach and this is where we will be going. At the edge of the water the beach is pink, we are told the colour comes from red coral. Each snorkel we have done of the last three each has been better than the last. There is a bit of a current running right to left. I swim out as far over as I can and head to the top of the area we can snorkel in. Visibility is great but the current does pull me a bit. I understand why this area is regarded as the best snorkeling in the world the coral is amazing and very diverse which means you can see large and small fish, coral in an array of shapes and colours, deep maroon soft corals others were various shades of green.I saw a small stingray, brown with purple spots, have never seen that before.

Some people climb the hill cautiously because there are dragons here. A pig can be seen on one side of the beach taking a dip in the sea totally unperturbed by people. It was an appropriate way to end the last day of this trip.

No briefing tonight it's the gala final dinner and show. Tomorrow we pack.Read more