April 18, 2006

Tristan da Cunha


Forget Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskyi. I've now found out about what is officially the most isolated settlement in the world - an island called Tristan da Cunha in the middle of the South Atlantic Ocean!

I first read about Tristan on Lonely Planet's website - every now and then they publish photo stories related to travelling and this one just blew my mind! Around 270 people live on this island which is almost 3000 kilometres away from the nearest settlement, and even that's an island as well (St. Helena). The only way to reach it is by a supply ship from Cape Town, which means spending a week in cramped quarters. The settlement is called Edinburg of the Seven Seas and it seems that when the settlers first saw electricity and cars in the 60's when they were forced to evacuate to Great Britain because the volcano erupted, they begged to be taken back to their beautiful island and never wanted to see the "civilised world" again!

You can see the photo feature of Lonely Planet here: http://www.lonelyplanet.com/journeys/photo_feature/tristan_da_cunha/

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