Padar Island
Three bays with differently coloured sand, seen from a ridge two hundred and fifty steps up.
Duration
1 hr 30 min – 2 hrs
Difficulty
●●●○○
Best time
At sunrise
Open
Every day
Entry price
To confirm
Padar is the third island of Komodo national park, uninhabited, between Komodo and Rinca. Its indented shape creates three bays that almost meet, whose beaches are three different colours — white, black and pink — depending on the rock feeding them.
You grasp it from the ridge, reached by a wood-and-stone stairway of some two hundred and fifty steps then a path along the crest. Twenty to thirty minutes of dry climbing without a single tree, on an island that turns brown in the dry season and green in the wet.
Getting there
By boat from Labuan Bajo, two to three hours depending on the vessel. There is no other way there.
What the price covers
Komodo national park entry fee, collected on arrival; rate to be checked
Rules on site
No shade and no water on the island: climbing in the middle of the day is genuinely dangerous in the dry season. The wooden steps are gapped in places.
