Komodo Island

Komodo Island is a very dry barren island and is the perfect habitat for the Komodo Dragon that loves these conditions.

The Komodo Dragon, that looks like a giant lizard, is a very dangerous and deadly animal.  One bite from this creature means almost certain death.  They are flesh eating animals and their main diet on the island is the deer and wild pigs that roam freely on the island.  They are carnivore's that will readily eat their young.  When the female lays her eggs - 20 or more - in the mounds, that they inherit from the guinea fowls, they stay with the eggs until they hatch and then feed them for a short period of time before the young are left to fend for themselves.  The way that the young do this is to climb trees and stay up there until there are no predators around and then come down for a quick feed before quickly ascending the tree once again.  Not surprisingly there are only 300 Komodo Dragons left in the wild and their population is stable.

We tendered in to the jetty today.  This has been our first tender in a long time and we enjoy it very much.

Once on shore we were introduced to our guide and two other protection guides.  All the guides carry pronged sticks with them in the event that we meet an Komodo Dragon who is intent on attack.  Fortunately we didn't meet any of them today.

We had a 2.5km hike into an area that the locals have watered to entice the dragons.  Today we were lucky enough to see six dragons and a baby high up in a tree. They are enormous, particularly the male.  We were told not to wear red clothing as this would attract the attention of the dragon.  I wore a rust colour and I swear to god one of those dragons was watching my every move!

Can you spot the baby dragon in the tree?

The tour was very interesting and we know a lot more about the Komodo Dragon than we did before the day started.  The tour was two hours but we had a long wait on the pier for our tender to arrive to transport us back to the ship, and as luck would have it, on the driest island we have ever been on, the sky opened up and we were completely drenched by a downpour or rain.  Ah well.  Adds to the fun and certainly cooled us down!

Just had to add this photo.  Do you think this little boat is overloaded!