Bryn From South Africa

“ I visited Flores for 12 days starting at the end of August into September. I went with 3 friends, Naude, Kirsten and Charles and we decided to start the trip by spending 6 day’s aboard a magical boat called Tanaka (the most comfortable sailing I’ve ever done). The sailing constituted of amazing sunrises and sunsets with the clearest water teeming with life. If we weren’t underwater exploring we were hiking up and down the various islands that all seemed to have the most amazing lookout points, I struggled to put my camera down and stop filming but sometimes you got to and just appreciate where you are.

Padar Island is probably one of the most well known of the islands and rightly so, the views and beaches are truly out of this world giving off a prehistoric vibe. Talking of prehistoric, a visit to flores wouldn’t be one without visiting the Komodo dragons and yooo did we get lucky as we happened to get close and personal with the beasts while they were chowing down on a water buffalo that they had killed the previous day. This was one of the highlights for me as this was is not a common sight and I got to just sit in the stream at eye level and watch these amazing animals do their thing.

After we spent enough time on the water it was time to jump on a scooter and start exploring the island wherever the roads could take us. We cruised into the mountains stopping when we could to take in the views and film every now and then. The people on flores were so friendly, everyone waving as we scootered past and even when there was an issue or we were briefly lost they were very quick to help us. We made our way to Wae Rebo for the night which resulted in many hours on the scooter but eventually we made it to the start of the 2hr hike up to the Wae Rebo village that was floating somewhere on a ridge in the clouds. The village is so beautiful, I wished we could of stayed there for a few nights but we were up at sunrise and hiking back down the mountain as we had set ourselves a rather intense schedule to cover as much of the island as we could in the short time we had.

Many many hours were spent on the scooter as we climbed over some amazing mountain passes, rice paddies and coastal roads…..it was a real treat for the sensors as there always seemed to be something new around every corner. We eventually after a few days of visiting villages, hiking to waterfalls and bathing in hot springs we started getting closer to the volcanoes. We stayed at the base of Kilimutu for a night and this was the furthest point of our trip, we woke up early and made sure we were at the top of the volcano for sunrise and wow we were given a real treat. The clouds were rolling through and in between the acid lakes which made for some amazing footage that I can’t wait to eventually edit. This was probably the highlight of the trip, it was obviously a beautiful sight but it was a great time to look back at the last 10 days from up there and be so grateful of the experience.

From there it was time to once again spend countless hours on the scooter to make our way back to Labuan Bajo and make it back just in time to have a drink and watch the sunset over the harbour. I filmed the whole experience and will be putting a short film together of the trip as soon as I get a free moment to do some editing 🙂 “.

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