I’ve been on Cousin Island for a week now and I’m completely in awe of it. It is awesome. I never use the word awesome, because the ubiquitous use of it has completely belittled its purpose and made it really annoying. There’s no point saying something is awesome when you’re talking about a frozen pizza. In this instance though, I reckon the word is justified.

Arriving on the boat from Praslin we were met with a cacophony of bird sound, louder than I have ever heard in my life, including what I heard in the world’s oldest rainforest in Malaysia. The smell is obvious as well, not unpleasant, but distinctive: it smells like birds. I climbed out of the boat into the noticeably warm water and felt like I was stepping into another world, or back in time. Jurassic Park. We continue on to the volunteer house, where on route we were eyed by literally hundreds of noddys sitting on their miniature nests, the odd tropic bird nestled in tree roots, the ghostly and utterly beautiful fairy tern and dozens of skinks and crabs seeking shelter from our foreign feet. They watched as we walked through their world, occasionally flying down to get a closer look at us, but never far away. I was completely knackered after the 33 hour journey to get here, which added to the dreamlike state I felt as the birds announced our arrival to each other through the trees.