Garuda Indonesia Colours Magazine February 2018 | Page 104

Travel | North Halmahera
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Along Tobelo’s waterfront a whole fleet of
craft wait – much as they’ve always done
– to load up with passengers or with the
natural wealth of the Spice Islands.
Things are sometimes not
what they seem in Halmahera.
The great cone of Mt Mamuya
looms like a gigantic pyramid
behind Tobelo town, looking
like a picture-perfect volcanic
backdrop. Yet it’s just a
peaceful, jungle-covered
mountain. But, to the west of
town, what looks like a ragged
mountain ridge with swirls and
eddies of highland mist is, on
closer inspection, the partially
hidden crater of Dukono
volcano sending up raucous
coughs from the planet.
Down on the waterfront, traders and
deckhands barely cast an eye towards the
volcano (one of the most dramatic of
Indonesia’s 127 active volcanoes), which has
been rumbling ominously, almost without
break, for the last 85 years. Boarding a boat at
the rough-hewn wooden jetty, I get the idea
that time changes very slowly in old Tobelo.
“North Halmahera is one of Indonesia’s
hidden gems, with incredible landscapes and
fascinating history,” says guide Yusferglius
Tjingaisa. “Yet, today, few people even seem
to know that it exists.”
There had only been one other foreigner on
my flight into the island from Manado: we
chatted for a minute or two in the baggage
hall before realising we’d met 20 years before
at a gold mine in Kalimantan. Indonesia
might be a mind-bogglingly huge country,
but North Halmahera is a small world.
As our little boat putters out towards a chain
of islands, flying fish glitter like silver darts in
the tropical sun and in the distance I notice
the splashes from a small pod of dolphins.
North Halmahera boasts 115 islands (mostly
uninhabited), and it is a mark of their
remoteness that even today 19 of them
remain unnamed.
“Over to the south there is Tupu-Tupu
island,” Yus shouts over the throbbing
of the outboard motor, “and dead-ahead
is Tagalaya.”
Tupu-Tupu was named in the local language
as ‘Fire Island’ – for reasons that have long
been forgotten – and even at this distance
I can see the tell-tale lacework fringe of
breaking white-water that occasionally
attracts adventurous surfers to this area.
Tagalaya, meanwhile, appears as an
impenetrable mangrove forest, but Yus
assures me that it’s a unique snorkelling spot.
If you know the secret channel through the
barrier reef and the mangrove maze, there’s
a protected lagoon that fills most of the
centre of the island. But it is tiny Pawole
island (barely 200m long) that lures us
onwards to the edge of the open ocean.
Pawole is a classic desert island paradise,
fringed with talcum-powder sand and capped
with tousle-headed palms. We jump off the
boat to explore a pristine Robinson Crusoe
beach devoid of human footprints. The
regimented lines of palms in the centre of the
island betray the fact that this is a tiny coconut
plantation, perhaps established by a
descendant of the traders who sold spices
and oil to the Chinese and Arabs long before