Paolyn Houseboat - Coron

I woke to the sound of the 4.30 roosters and the bark of geckos (F.Y.I gecko barking is one of the 10 weirdest and most wonderful noises to hear before you die). We quickly made sure we were all packed and ready to go. When our host said we had to be up at 4.30, she gave no warning of a 20-minute hike uphill with the only light coming from our phones. As we stumbled through the jungle, we could hear hungry wolves howling in the distance (they might have just been local dogs, but you never know).

After the hike we waited with our bags at the top of the hill next to a very bumpy looking motorbike track. We waited half an hour for our transport which was the land rover thing I talked about in my previous post. It was late because there was a boulder on the road. Just as we thought, the road was very bumpy and we all held on for our lives. After 20 billion years (an hour) we got onto a proper road and could relax.

Our flight from El Nido to Coron was about 40 minutes and pretty comfortable. When we arrived in Coron there was a minivan waiting to pick us up, it stopped at a couple of other places before arriving at the port where we got in a super-speedy speed boat to the sheltered lagoon in which our accom was situated.

The Paolyn Houseboat was more of a very big pontoon, there was a restaurant downstairs and the accom was upstairs. Attached to it were kayaks and SUPs that we could use whenever we wanted. The meals here were pretty good and, because there was different menu each day, we got to try different things. We even got Nutella and mango crepes for breakfast.

On the day we arrived we went for a paddle to Twin Lagoons where we had a swim and watched the sun set on the limestone cliffs. The water was so calm that it made the paddling easy, which was handy as Nan and I were in one kayak and Dad, Mum and Em in the other.

The next day, we (by we, I mean Emily, Dad and I) paddled to a beautiful snorkelling spot (Mum and Nan were worried that if they got out of the kayak, they wouldn’t be able to get back in, so they got dropped off in a boat). We saw lots of different colours and varieties of fish and coral; the water was crystal clear and we could have stayed there all day.

At the end of the day we got a boat to a small beach to see turtles and the sunset. I saw 4 turtles and 1 sunset. The turtles were a brownish-green colour and the sunset was a pinky-orange colour.

This was a pretty special place to stay. Next stop… Rock Island.