Indonesia will have a tough job competing with Borneo but I was super excited to return. We had a fantastic time at Lombok earlier this year when we spent a week living in resorts and recouping at Easter. This time was gonna be less luxury and more travelling, I can’t wait.

To make it to our starting point, Labuan Bajo, we needed to first successfully self transfer at Bali airport in less than two hours. No small fete with immigration, luggage to collect and a run across the airport, all of course with tired boys in tow. But despite my worries we made it. (But if your planning on transferring from international to domestic at depansar I would say you need at least 3 hours to do it. )

The flights themselves were a little turbulent which of course sent me into panic but realistically all went smoothly and on time… so by sunset we were settled into our new accommodation GoloHilltop.

In total we had 8 nights in Labuan Bajo and apart from a prebooked cruise around Komodo we had no plans and no real expectations. In fact Labuan Bajo turned out to be one of my favourite places I have visited for a long time. It’s definitely on the cusps of a big boom, you can feel it, hotels and infrastructure are being built all around the old almost shanty town feeling port. I hope that despite its obvious attraction to tourists and the development that goes with it, the place manages to keep hold of its charm.

A big part of that charm is the people, there big smiles, helpfulness and incredibly laid back attitude to time and organisation. The place is all no fuss and chill. The vibe seems to pass on to the tourists, who also in contrast to Borneo were smiling, calm and chilled out.

We spent our first day exploring the town and booking a few tours. There are hundreds of little huts along the Main Street offering very similar tours at similar prices… in the end it was just a case of picking one at random. We picked Permatravel and were very impressed with both the tours we had with them… of course there were small inconveniences but for some reason the Labuan Bajo attitudes seem to make these acceptable and part of the journey.

Our first tour was away from the main reason tourists come her but totally worth it! The road inland up the mountains to fantastic views over the bay were reason alone for the trip.

But the main focal point was actually a waterfall 2 hours drive inland. A little of the beaten track, so only shared with a couple of other tourists we made our way by the foot through forests and across more terrifying bridges to the canyon and waterfall.

A fun couple of hours were spent exploring the pools around the water fall.

Lego boy first impresses is with a voluntary jump of a cliff into one of the pools…

Next to impress was boy blue who also wanted to follow! Part of me was screaming no f***in way… but he was so excited and keen to follow his brothers example that we agreed. The jump was to high for him to do it safely in his jacket… he can of course swim a few meters without it but never the less he usually wears it in unusual situations like boats and in this case canyoning. I know he has jumped this height before and always managed to swim to the surface … I also know he has gone deeper under water than he would submerge on landing but that was in a clear swimming pool.

Daddy let him go and I was at the bottom to help once he landed… he of course swam perfectly back to the surface and announces slightly confused… “I think that was fun mummy”. My baby is growing up way to fast!

After all the excitement We settled ourselves on a rock in the sun to dry out and our guide brought us some local coffee (which is incredibly strong).

Next stop on the tour was exploring a network of caves which much to the boys excitement involved wearing hard hats… no middle man was in his element, climbing vines in and out of the network (instead of using the con-create steps) and pointing out all the strange rock formations around us. Again an unexpected fun experience.

Tour two was this time on the water but we still avoided the national park, the main draw, which we would be exploring soon enough.

This tour instead took us to two snorkel spots. The first was nothing special (due to over use I suspect) but the second was spectacular… it was then and there I decided that we must find a way to dive whilst in Labuan Bajo.

The highlight of the trip was just as the sun was setting… we had been very slowly been making our way to a special location for over an hour… you could tell the crew were killing time and they boys became inpatient … part of me was tempted to call it a day. But I’m so glad we didn’t… it started slowly at first but a few minutes after we spotted the first bat over the island, thousands of fruit bats filled the sky. The eldest two climbed the mast to get with a few meters of the spectictical.

So much fun and still with the main event to come! Komodo dragons!!