Sunset canoes, island tour and barbecue
Anastasia
Phil May and Andrea Twigg
Mon 1 Oct 2012 04:52
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Cocos Keeling has been one of our favourite
stopovers.
We are anchored at Direction Island, which is
uninhabited (except for a policeman with a tent), so it is almost like
being back on Suwarrow.
Home Island is a 15 minute dinghy ride away and has
a reasonable supermarket for provisioning, plus a small but interesting museum
about the time when the islands were used for copra production.
West Island is a ferry ride from Home Island.
It is the most developed, with the airport, motel, cafe, restaurant,
bar and an artist's studio sited in an old barge. We spent
a night on West Island, with a sunset canoe tour in the evening
and then a tour of the island the next morning. The tour
was conducted by John Clunies-Ross, who's father was the last of the
dynasty that owned and farmed the
islands. The coconut plantations are now uneconomical to farm and they are
just returning to jungle.
Last night we had the official ARC get together,
with a barbecue on Direction Island. It was a good opportunity to catch up
with the friends we had not yet met here (plus we won a bottle of wine for the
leg from Bali).
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