Natural splendour, real musics, wines, wordpower
As we walked from the jetty to the school in Aduwey village, it was easy to see that most inhabitants were not materially wealthy.
It was also readily apparent that they had self-respect, they enjoyed each other’s company, meticulously maintained their houses and paths, and fully appreciated the natural beauty of their particular part of the world.
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At 8.45 am on 09 October, we climbed onto the jetty at Aduwey – a village on Misool Island.
You are looking at a tiny piece of soft coral – severed, probably accidentally.
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I took this post’s photo 8.07 am on 09 0ctober 2024, as we were preparing to head to the pictured shore – that of Misool Island, one of Raja Ampat’s four “main” islands.
The other 1500+ islands, islets and atolls are all much smaller; most are rainforest-clad.
The waters around them are currently “our” planet’s’ most species-rich; their clarity is oft-astonishing.
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The mostly-uninhabited islands of the Guraici Archipelago offer something rarely found in north easternmost Indonesia: “white” beaches.
At 9.36 am on 06 October 2024 my feet and those of the pictured, very petite hermit crab shared one such, on an also-tiny island.
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Only India, China and the United States are home to more humans than is Indonesia.
The north easternmost islands of the Indonesian archipelago – those east of Sulawesi – are huge in number, but most are small isles and islets…”invisible” on most maps.
Collectively, they account for a miniscule portion of Indonesia’s human population, which now exceeds 283 million.
The islands and waters of North Maluku, Maluku, and Raja Ampat are extraordinarily biodiverse, species-rich, and scenically splendid; this is a region of rainforests, reefs, karsts, astonishing marine life, birds of paradise, incredible cloudscapes…and surprisingly few humans.
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Just south of Ternate, Tidore Island is also just “a dot on the map”, and was likewise “built” by its volcano.
Ternate Island and Tidore Island were once the centres of two rival sultanates.
Tidore’s big volcano – Mt Kie Matubu – dominates this post’s photo, which I took from Ternate’s eastern (Ternate City) shore.
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On Ternate the third afternoon of October 2024 was very wet – a not unusual circumstance on an island where annual average rainfall comfortably exceeds 2,000 mm.
At 3.46 pm the rain was easing, as we stood on the rim of Tolire Lake.
We failed to see any of its resident crocodiles, but the view across the crater lake – and up to Mt Gamalama’s highest peak – was becoming progressively clearer.
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Our first primary destination was the quintessential “spice island”,
In eastern Indonesia’s North Maluku province, Ternate is small in area, but handsomely that province’s most populous island.
Its active volcano – Mt Gamalama, which rises 1,715 metres ASL – has long been Ternate’s key benefactor and destroyer.
The Maluku Islands are also known as “the Moluccas”, or “the Spice Islands”.
In pre-colonial times the Sultanate of Ternate was wealthy and powerful, thanks to it then having a global monopoly over a highly prized commodity.
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In appearance, Lichmera indistincta – the brown honeyeater – is a strong contender for an “undesirable” title: Australia’s most plain/drab/nondescript honeyeater.
This species’ song, however, is widely considered the finest of any Australian honeyeater’s; clear recordings of it are here. (the second grab is the better one)
The pictured brown honeyeaters are young individuals who dine on pollen & nectar from plants that naturally occur only in southwest Western Australia.
However, brown honeyeaters are highly adaptable; they live across parts of all mainland Australian states and territories, except Victoria;
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They are not at all closely related to Banksias, but so-called “grasstrees” – which are neither trees nor grasses – also sport spectacular “spikes”.
Each such spike is occasionally “clothed” with an enormous number of flowers.
A “grasstree” flower spike can soar two or more metres – sometimes straight-line vertically, sometimes contortedly.
All grasstrees are endemic to Australia; many species occur in very particular regions, but at least one kind naturally occurs in at least one of every Australian state or territory.
This post’s heroes are endemic to southwest WA.
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