The Coral Sea & the Dragon Isles, 13 January 2030

Cruise overview

Depart Cairns for Lizard Island, a granite outpost ringed by twenty-four white beaches where potato cod patrol the legendary Cod Hole. Sail into the Northern Territory’s far frontier at Yirrkala, a call almost no other ship makes, where Yolngu artists welcome you into the Buku-Larrnggay Mulka centre to see bark paintings and larrakitj poles carrying stories tens of thousands of years old. Glide by tender through the mangrove creeks of Seven Spirit Bay, a Cobourg Peninsula wilderness reached by very few vessels, where saltwater crocodiles bask and dugongs graze the seagrass shallows. Darwin’s Mindil Beach markets and WWII tunnels give way to Kupang’s Dutch-colonial waterfront on West Timor, then Komodo, a UNESCO World Heritage site, where a ranger leads you across Rinca’s tawny hills to meet the world’s largest lizard, and Pink Beach blushes with crushed coral at the water’s edge. In Lombok, snorkel the Gili Islands’ turtle-filled shallows before your voyage concludes at Benoa, gateway to Bali’s temple-crowned cliffs and incense-scented courtyards.