Our last stop in Indonesia was a hundred times better than I thought it would be. I never thought we would see dragons after Komodo island, but I was wrong.
Last week, Lukie and I decided to go ashore to play on an island covered with big rocks. We were in a place called Belitung, a group of islands in central Indonesia that we had stopped at on our way from Borneo to Malaysia. Belitung is a beautiful group of atolls with smooth, white rocks surrounding the small sandy islands filled with deep green forests. As soon as Lukie and I saw the islands we went wild. We both wanted to go ashore to play pirates or Jurassic Park.
We were anchored next to the biggest one. Our island had massive rocks surrounding it as if a giant had carelessly dropped them, and a beach on the opposite side. In the middle of the island there was a small forest.
When we got there, we dragged the kayak up the beach and ran around, letting out all the energy we had stored up on the three-day passage from Kumai. It had been a while since we had been on a sandy island, and this one was amazing: the rocks on the island were massive and one had a stone ramp going up it. You could jump over gaps onto other rocks and hide in caves. One cave was full of bats!
Lukie and I were climbing around the rocks when he wanted to play Lord of the Rings, so I hid in the forest which was full of rocks, vines and trees, to get away from his monster. After a while of sneaking around in the forest I wanted to leave but a rustle of leaves told me not to. I looked around to try and find the source of the noise. Was it coming from under a rock? No, nothing there.
I started to run up some rocks to get to Lukie who was calling my name. On the way to him I went through some boulders to remain hidden. Suddenly, something appeared in front of me. I nearly fell off the rock with surprise. I ran up to Lukie, my heart racing.
“Lukie! Guess what I found!”
“Shush Matias, Mummy wants a photo.” Our mum was just off the rocks in the dingy with her camera.
“I found a monitor lizard!”
“No way? You’re lying!”
A monitor lizard is sort of like a Komodo dragon, just smaller and more grey or black. The one I saw was about 30 cm long.
My Mum said it was lunchtime and we promised we would come soon in the kayak. But we shouldn’t have stayed. As soon as she had left it started to rain and it became very windy. Lukie and I attempted to kayak back to the boat but we were pushed downwind and ended up on the beach. Rain started to pour down so hard it hurt so we tried to find shelter:
First we hid under an overhang with water pouring off it. The water fell so heavily it was like a massage. We played with shells under the waterfall for a while but then we got cold.
Then we moved to a little overhang high up near the bat cave. We had to climb up there but we didn’t want to stay because it was too slippery and it was a 10-metre drop at least if we slid off. The overhang wasn’t rain proof, so we had to find somewhere else.
Last we went into the bat cave, which was full of tiny bats the size of a baby’s fists. There was a lot of bat poo and it smelled strange, so we left.
Once the rain had stopped we left the cave and on the way through the forest we found a blue egg which was half broken. I picked it up and showed it to Lukie. It was very leathery and had some yellow, runny yolk in it. I thought it was probably a monitor lizard egg so we didn’t keep it, just in case the mother would come and eat us.
We went onto a stone platform near where I had heard the rustle. This time we didn’t hear anything but we saw the culprit. A big lizard was looking at us, it was about a metre long: a monitor! It darted towards us like a slingshot bullet and disappeared behind the rock we were looking from, which was only about a metre away. We shot off the stone platform onto the beach, quickly putting the kayak in the water. The wind had calmed down so we managed to get back to the boat.
A few days later we went back to the monitor lizard island to look for it again. This time our Dad was with us. At first, we heard the lizard but didn’t see it. My Dad was scrambling over the rocks and I climbed after him. When I reached him, he said that he had seen a monitor run under a rock. After a bit of climbing we jumped down next to the hole and looked in. I saw it run further into the cave and then it was gone. I got my camera ready and pointed it in the hole.
“Matias, give your camera to me, I have an idea.” My Dad turned on the flash and took pictures of the hole. After a couple of shots, we decided it had escaped. I was a bit disappointed because I wanted to prove that I had seen it and I wanted a photo.
Belitung was our last stop in Indonesia. There, we did quarantine and harbour master and everything else we needed to do to leave the country because we were going to go to Malaysia so we could fly to Europe to see our family.
We were leaving Indonesia: NOOOOOOO!!!!! I am going to miss the food, the animals and our friends. Well, some of our friends are in Malaysia, so we will hopefully see them there.
SV Bob The Cat 