Tristan da Cunha: A Hermit's Wet Dream

In the last few months I've been thinking about where I want to go on my OE: I want to get some money working in England and (maybe) the States, but I also have plenty of places that I just want to go visit.  Some of them are have awesome castles (The Rhine river in Germany), others are less than safe (hi Iraq, please don't kill me), and others I just saw them in a movie (step on down Bruges!).

And then there was those that are just in the middle of fucking no-where.

Introducing Tristan da Cunha.

Hidden away in the South Atlantic Ocean between Africa and South America, this British overseas territory proudly holds the honour of being the remotest bloody place in the world. 

Discovered and, rather arrogantly, named after the Portuguese explorer Tristao da Cunha in 1506, it would not be officially surveyed for another 250 years thanks to rough seas.  A chap by the name of John Lambert eventually established a permanent settlement in 1810 re-naming it the Refreshment Islands, however this was a short-lived enterprise as he died just two years later ironically in a boating accident.  Finally, in 1816 the British annexed the islands to prevent the French from using it as a base to free Napoleon and to stop the yanks from, well...they had a little war going on between them at the time, so let’s just leave it at that shall we? 

Anyway, a garrison of British Marines were posted at the island and eventually civilians started popping up along with whalers, which led to the island developing into a settlement.  Aside from being used as a secret British base in WW2, the islands got the short end of the stick as the world discovered steam power and the Suez Canal became the tits of the shipping world.  In 1961 the local volcano decided to throw its toys out of the cot by erupting, forcing the islands’ inhabitants to flee all the way to Mother England.  A couple of years later the islands were declared safe again and the hermits returned, figuring that it would be better to be burned alive by lava or shipwrecked than being eaten by a computer or something.

Om nom nom