This week we’re exploring the rest of Flores, visiting Rangko Cave via a trip to the cape north of Labuan Bajo, driving back inland to a waterfall (Cunca Rami), celebrating New Years Eve on an island and visiting Komodo National Park.

The drive out to Rangko Cave was certainly a muddy one! The cave is only accessible by boat, so we drove as far as we could and hired one to go that last little (10mins) leg. The cave has a salt water pool which glows a very vibrant blue, especially at about 3pm when the sun beams in through the cave entrance.

Next on the list is Cunca Rami, a waterfall, 43km out of Labuan Bajo and then another hour or so walk to the falls. Well, it was supposed to be 43km! We ended up getting lost and 3 hours later we thought we’d gone down the wrong track and as we turned around to reverse, we could see the waterfall! With no other tourists around, we really enjoyed a few hours here climbing up behind the falls, swimming around and taking some photos.

As we’d taken a little longer to get to the falls than originally planned, it was pretty late in the day so we had a look on the map to see if there was anywhere we could possibly camp instead of driving back to Labuan Bajo. There was an unnamed lake on the map (which we later found out is called Sano Nggoang) and decided to drive there to have a look around. So glad that we did because we found a town called “Nunang”, where we were able to pull up next to the lake and camp for the night. Sitting at 750m ASL the lake is actually a volcanic crater, the largest on the island.

It’s now New Years Eve! What an amazing year this has been and we’re so excited for next year and the adventures that lay ahead! When we first came into Labuan Bajo we met Will who invited us out to his resort on a neighbouring island for a new years party with a few of the expats from town. We didn’t have anything else planned, so why not?! It took about 1 hour on the boat to get out there, though it felt like we were worlds away from the busy town of Labuan Bajo. We spent a couple of days there celebrating, relaxing and diving. What a treat!

Back to reality now and to a fresh new year! Before we leave Flores we had to book in a day trip out to Komodo National Park. There’s a big handful of companies in Labuan Bajo that offer day trips out to the Park, though they all go to the same places, so it’s just a matter of asking around and finding somewhere you’re happy to go with. The itinerary for the day is Padar Island, Komodo Island to see the Komodo Dragons, Pink Beach and snorkelling with the Manta Rays.

With an early start we were down at the jetty ready for the 2 hour trip to Padar Island. We were really lucky with the weather (being in the middle of the wet season) as it was a really clear day, and with all of the recent rain the island was very green. We’d heard that during the dry season it goes quite brown! The walk up to the top was a little steep though they’ve recently built stairs up for most part of the walk. From the top of the stairs we walked a bit further along the dirt track where we were able to enjoy the amazing view all to ourselves.

At Komodo National Park, there are 4 different walks you can do varying in lengths from 1km to around 18km. As we were on a shared boat we were told the schedule was quite tight and had only an hour here, which meant everyone was doing the 1km walk! We did manage to see a few of the Komodo Dragons, which are rather large lizards and are endemic to this little section of Indonesia.

On the way out to swim with the Mantas, the boat stopped at Pink Beach for a 30 minutes swim. From the boat it did not look pink at all, though when we swam up to the shore you could see very find pieces of red sand filtered through with the white sand. You can see it a little in the drone video! Here we were lucky to find a friendly turtle to swim around with before jumping back in the boat.

Next stop, MANTAS!! Since we lost pretty much all of our GoPro footage of the Manta Rays from diving last week, we were so excited to swim with them again and go free diving instead of scuba. As soon as the boat got there we could see a big group of them in the water so we jumped in as fast as we could get out gear on! Seriously such an amazing experience swimming with them without all of your scuba gear on. They’re extremely gentle and curious creatures and stuck around swimming with us for about an hour. What a way to finish off our time in Flores!

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