Up the ridge before the sun does

Of all the stops, Padar alone wants you in place before the light arrives. The boat is at anchor overnight, the captain having picked the spot with the weather, and on the second morning it is still dark when the tender takes you ashore, weary and a little cross, with a torch in one hand. Breakfast waits on board for afterwards. The reward is three bays side by side, each with sand of its own colour, the picture most people have in mind when they book a Komodo voyage, and it is a better picture with the sun coming up behind it.

Padar is a viewpoint and not a wildlife stop. No dragons live there; the last were seen long ago. Nobody on Vhale will promise you anything else.

The table above has the figures. Sunrise is the hour, moderate the difficulty, and 25 to 45 minutes on foot the cost of the main viewpoint. The path is steps and loose ground, steep in places, and it is easier on the way up than on the way down, when knees complain. There is no hurry on the ridge. The boat waits for you, so a slow climber arrives later and misses nothing but the first minute.

The higher ridge needs more time than the main viewpoint, which is enough for one morning. Children who walk well manage it; those who do not are carried or stay aboard. Older relatives with bad knees should tell us in advance, so that the captain knows who will be coming ashore and who is happy with a second coffee on the day bed.

Sunrise moves through the year by about 50 minutes, and the table lists every month. In July it falls at 06:18, and in November at 05:31. The table also gives the hour at which to leave the boat, which is 65 minutes earlier, and the hour by which to be on the ridge, 20 minutes before the sun.

Those are computed times, accurate to a few minutes, and the crew shifts the wake-up call with the swell and with how quickly the tender can land a large party. A table of twenty-odd people takes longer to put ashore than a table of four, so allow for the second trip. Plan on an alarm in the dark in any month. The sky is half-light well before the sun clears the hills, and that half-hour is the best of it.