There are several other beautiful beaches on the Gold Coast that offer surfing and scuba diving, great restaurants and chic boutiques, and miles and miles of sand and sun. The city boasts about 50 stunning miles of beaches. Broadbeach is known for its shopping; Budds Beach is a favorite for families with children; Runaway Beach is a favorite for sailing; and Surfers Paradise is the center for fun, with great restaurants, theme parks, and plenty of special events.

Of the many activities to enjoy on Cocos Island, Cocos Island diving is perhaps the most popular. The long reef off the coast of Cocos Island that created so much trouble for the Spanish traders continues to draw gorgeous tropical fish, octopi and other sea life. The warm, clear waters and consistent temperatures near Cocos make Cocos Island ideal for divers of every skill level.

In addition to diving, visitors to Cocos Island can also enjoy sun bathing, duty-free shopping and eating out. Snack shops and an ice cream parlors make up most of the food offerings on Cocos Island.

The Garden of Sleeping Giant Fiji displays over 2000 various kinds of orchids, which encompasses 20 hectares. Along with the magnificent collection attributed to Raymond Burr there are several rare Fijian orchids as well making this collection of orchids the largest in the world.

Tourists enjoy Manihi diving and snorkeling, which because of the perfect mixture of winds, waves, and clarity of water, make for some of the best in the world. Even though places like Bora Bora and Moorea offer extravagant hotels and resorts, and an amazing experience as well, you will not find a place like Manihi Island in Tahiti, or any of the other Pacific resort destinations for that matter. The uniqueness of the atoll, the reef, the lagoon, the islets, and the atmosphere in general, make travel to Manihi a one-of-a-kind experience.

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They lie 860 kilometres to the southeast of Stewart Island/Rakiura. The group consists of one main island, Antipodes Island, of 20 km² area, Bollons Island of 2 km² to the north, and numerous small islets and stacks. The highest point is Mount Galloway (402 m), which is also the group’s most recently active volcano. Ecologically, they are part of the Antipodes Subantarctic Islands tundra ecoregion.

The position of the Antipodes Islands relative to New Zealand, and other outlying islands.

The island group was originally called the “Penantipodes” meaning “next to the antipodes”, because it is near to the antipodes of London. Over time the name has been shortened to “Antipodes” leaving some to suppose its European discoverers hadn’t realised its global location. This misapprehension persists.

The islands are inscribed in the UNESCO World Heritage list together with the other sub-antarctic New Zealand islands in the region as follows: 877-003 Antipodes Isls New Zealand S49.41 E178.48 2097 Ha 1998

History

The island group was first charted in 1800 by Captain Henry Waterhouse of the British ship HMS Reliance. In 1803 Waterhouse’s brother-in-law George Bass applied to Governor King of New South Wales for a fishing monopoly from a line bisecting southern New Zealand from Dusky Sound to the Otago Harbour to cover all the lands and seas to the south, including the Antipodes Islands, probably because he knew the latter were home to large populations of fur seals. Bass sailed from Sydney to the south that year and was never heard of again but his information led to a sealing boom at the islands in 1805 to 1807. At one time eighty men were present; there was a battle between American and British-led gangs and a single cargo of more than 80,000 skins – one of the greatest ever shipped from Australasia – was on-sold in Canton for one pound sterling a skin, a multi-million dollar return in modern terms. Prominent Sydney merchants such as Simeon Lord, Henry Kable and James Underwood were engaged in the trade as well as the Americans Daniel Whitney and Owen Folger Smith. The William Stewart, who claimed to have charted Stewart Island and probably William Tucker who started the retail trade in preserved Maori heads were present during the boom. After 1807, sealing was occasional and cargoes small, no doubt because the animals had been all but exterminated.

A much later attempt to establish cattle on the islands was short-lived (as were the cattle). When the ship Spirit of Dawn foundered on the main island’s coast in 1893, the eleven surviving crew spent nearly three months living as castaways on the island, living on a subsistence diet of raw seabird. Coincidentally, a well-supplied castaway depot[2] was available on the other end of the island.

The depot was found and used by the crew of the President Felix Faure wrecked in Anchorage bay in 1908. The last wreck at the Antipodes was the yacht Totorore with the loss of two lives, Gerry Clark and Roger Sale, in June 1999.

The islands are home to numerous bird species including the endemic Antipodes Snipe, Antipodes Island Parakeet and the Antipodean Albatross. The group is also home to half of the world population of Erect-crested Penguin. The flora of the islands has been recorded in detail, and includes some species of plants known as megaherbs.

In 1886, a shard of early Polynesian pottery was discovered roughly 2ft 6in below the surface on the main island, indicating prior visitation. The pottery fragment, apparently a piece of a bowl, is now housed in the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa in Wellington.

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