Desolation Island

The World
Enormous poster of the world.

As I mention in the about page one of the key motivators for getting Go Cotswolds off the ground is my fascination with travel.

I love the idea of exploring different parts of the world and the idea of showing off a very small part of it that I know โ€“ The Cotswolds โ€“ to people that donโ€™t is something that excites me.

The world fascinates me. Itโ€™s enormous yet relatively accessible with modern travel and I often find myself gawping at the enormous poster of the world in the office thinking of where Iโ€™d like to go.

Something that whilst on a call earlier I was doing once again.

The thing I find is that if you look at a map of the world for even a small period of time youโ€™re almost guaranteed to find somewhere youโ€™ve never heard of (unless your an expert geographer of course).

Kerguelen
The Kerguelen Islands – circled in red

Which led me to the Kerguelen Islands. Heard of them? No, nor me.

Itโ€™s essentially a group of islands (the largest of which is roughly the size of Cumbria) part of the French Southern and Antarctic Lands in the South Indian Ocean.

Itโ€™s nicknamed Desolation Island due to itโ€™s remoteness.

The average temperature in the height of summer is a lofty 11ยฐC and all bar a group of 50-100 scientists and a job lot of seals itโ€™s uninhabited.

However, if you fancy visiting they do welcome tourists. About 30 a year in fact.

Unfortunately, the only way to get there is by boat โ€“ which appears to take 28 days from the French Island Reunion.

Not very accessible even with modern travel.

Iโ€™ve been very fortunate to go to some places relatively far from home but I canโ€™t say Iโ€™ve ever been anywhere quite as remote as that.

Kerguelen Islands on Google Maps

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@-49.2038781,69.3836054,130302m/data=!3m1!1e3