TRAVEL INDONESIA || Flores & Komodo liveaboard

One of our bucket list stops on our trip was to visit Flores, which is the main hub from which to see Komodo National Park. We were lucky enough that there were plenty of liveaboard trips on offer when we got to Flores, so we had a bit of a shop around and picked one that gave us 3 days/2 nights out exploring the islands and reefs.

The weather was amazing and it was great to relax on the decks, cruising past reefs, islands and turquoise waters. There's no shortage on wildlife around the national park, and we spent the first evening watching thousands of fruit bats take off from the mangroves and fly over us as they headed out for the night to feed.

On the 2nd day we visited Komodo island itself. We weren't sure how many Komodo dragons lived on the island and how long it'd take to spot one (if we saw any at all!). We needn't have worried. We hadn't even made it outside the village before we had one cross the path in front of us. Over the c.3 mile walk, there were 7 dragons that we saw, and they were absolutely stunning. And big!!!

Following this, we had a stop at 'Manta Point' to hopefully see its namesake. We didn't have overly high hopes as it wasn't the right season and they were apparently mostly in the very south of the national park (far away from where we were and not particularly accessible). However we struck it lucky and spent 10 minutes snorkelling above 2 pretty good sized Mantas!

Komodo national park is world-renowned for the quality of its scuba diving, so it would have been a shame to miss out. Shivvy plucked up the courage to give it a go (previous attempts yielded very mixed results; mostly negative!) and unfortunately the guide we were paired with was really bad (and actually a bit dangerous) so her experience here was pretty awful. Having more experience than her and not being as dependent on the guide, I went for one final dive while Shivvy stayed on the boat and the dive itself was absolutely stunning! Turtles, Napoleon Wrasse, Trevallies, Moray eels, and the biggest puffer fish I've ever seen were just some of the animals on show.

Whilst a little off the beaten track, it was pretty easy and cheap to get to Flores and it was so worth it. We had high expectations after making it one of our focal points to plan the trip around, and it probably even exceeded those lofty expectations. Very highly recommend this for any animal enthusiasts as it had so much to offer!

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