I visited this WHS in August 2018. Ujung Kulon National Park is located at the westernmost tip of Java as its name suggests (Ujung Kulon actually means Western Point) and it is made up of Ujung Kulon peninsula low rainforests (home of the last remaining Java rhino) and the volcanic island groups and nature reserves of Krakatoa, Panaitan, Peucang and Honje in the Sunda Strait between the islands of Java and Sumatra.

I visited Krakatoa or Krakatau Nature Reserve as a long private day trip from Jakarta and it turned out to be by far the most dangerous and exhilarating WHS visits so far for a number of reasons. First of all after having booked online well in advance, hell seemed to break loose just before visiting Indonesia with very strong and devastating earthquakes and tsunami alerts all over the country but mostly near Lombok. On top of that, Anak Krakatau or the Child of Krakatau, a volcanic island which emerged from under the sea in 1927 from the caldera formed by the terrible 1883 eruption of Krakatau (which killed more than 30,000 people), got more active than usual and from June till September, molten lava eruptions took place almost on a daily basis with incandescent gases and ash coming out intermittently with occasional 'ballistic rocks' spewing out of the volcano and landing all over the island.

For this reason, we were almost certain that the trip would be cancelled as it involved climbing Anak Krakatau for a closer look. After calling a couple of days before to reconfirm, we were told that the trip was still confirmed and that it was up to us. We decided to go for it and surely enough at around 04:30 we were picked up from our hotel in Jakarta. By 07:30, after stopping for breakfast at Carita Beach, we met our captain and crew who were supposed to take us to Anak Krakatau in roughly 1.5hrs with a twin-motor boat. The captain warned us that it would be hard to reach the volcanic island group as the winds were blowing against us and the sea was treachorous to say the least with big swells and high waves initially marked as force 3.

The worst thing about the boat trip was that the volcanic group was only visible after more than 1.5hrs of 'wave surfing' and what seemed like never-ending bumps. Even though I'm not usually afraid of rough sea trips, I seriously was considering asking the crew to take us back and call it a day. The small fishing boat trip to Skellig Michael a few years back was what I always mentioned with friends as being one hell of a ride but as the weather report marked force 6-7 seas and we sped from one high wave to the next trying to reach Krakatau, the trip to Skellig Michael felt like a piece of cake compared to this! My better half started to feed the fish, which in itself was already an indication of how bad our situation was as she never threw up in her life before, and at that moment just before I was going to tell the crew to head back, I saw a dark column of thick smoke spouting out of the horizon and going high up into the skies! We had almost reached Krakatau Nature Reserve at long last.

As we sought refuge from the strong winds by heading between Rakata and Anak Krakatau, we witnessed molten lava reaching the seashore and causing white fumaroles of water vapour, ash and gas eruptions from the two vents or craters were occuring every 15-30mins and every now and then rocks were fired in the air and landing on different areas of the upper part of the island. The other side of Anak Krakatau, away from Rakata, has vegetation (photo) and a black sandy beach. Usually here there is a ranger on duty who takes over and continues the 'tour' upwards as close (and safe) as possible to the summit. Due to the significant volcanic activity taking place when we visited, there was no ranger on duty and it seems we were the only crazy people willing to risk our lives to get here and explore. There is a board with the UNESCO inscription information just behind the beach.

The most important safety advice given by our guide was to keep on the lookout for any big rocks catapulted in the sky towards our direction and NOT to run away backwards or forwards, but keep looking at its trajectory and simply move sideways before it reaches land. Judging by some of the burnt or still burning trees and by the size of some the heavier and larger volcanic rocks lying around with circular moon-like circumferences around them, our construction hats were definitely not enough to protect us. Luckily the only rocks that fell were small and quite far from were we climbed apart from a medium-sized lightweight pumice which reached the beach and now lies on my desk as a souvenir from Krakatau Nature Reserve. Out of the many crevices covered with ash, several ferns, bushes and flowers are growing all over the island and it really felt like a privilege to visit such an extraordinary place in the making (especially when other similar places on the list like Surtsey are off-limits).

After climbing down to the beach and collecting my souvenir which thankfully was a pumice not an igneous rock, I preferred not risking it further and asked our crew to prepare lunch opposite Anak Krakatau at a reasonable safety distance on Rakata's black sandy beach. The vegetation on Rakata is much older and bird life and reptiles are thriving. We quietly ate our lunch, gazing at Anak Krakatau erupting and we could feel the beach vibrating beneath us although the vibrations weren't as strong as the ones we felt when setting foot on Anak Krakatau's beach. After that we spent some time snorkelling on the other side of Rakata where supposedly there are two underwater volcanoes. There were several colourful fish but nothing special at least for snorkelling. It's more of a unique experience to swim over two marine volcanoes and two continental tectonic plates subducting under or over each other.

Even though I'm not a fan of volcanoes becoming WHS simply because each volcano is unique in some way or another, this particular volcanic group really felt special. Reading more about Krakatau in Simon Winchester's book Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded I could appreciate further its OUV. The fact that such a special place is just a small part of the huge Ujung Kulon National Park in itself reinforces its OUV and protection and conservation for those who want tangible proof of how insignificant man can be when compared to the power of nature.