DAVID ADAMS reports on the odder side of life…
Banwol Island, South Korea. PICTURE: Via Facebook – Korea Tourism Organization Malaysia
• If you’re a fan of the colour purple, then a visit to South Korea’s Banwol and Bakji Islands should be on the cards once international borders reopen. Known as the ‘Purple Islands’, they’ve become an Instagrammable tourist attraction after the less than 150 residents decided to paint their houses, roads, benches and bridges in various shades of the colour. They also planted purple flowers, such as lavender and asters, and even serve purple food to guests in purple crockery. The project, which was supported by the government, has reportedly led to hundreds of thousands of new visitors to the islands in the country’s south-west since the initiative was launched in 2015. Those wearing purple are given free entry.
• A type of honey produced in an isolated cave high in Turkey’s mountains has been named the world’s most expensive by Guinness World Records. Guinness said the new record was set last month when Centauri Honey, which is harvested from a cave some 2,500 metres above sea level, achieved a price tag of £8,700 a kilogram. Dark in colour with a bitter taste, Guinness says the honey “has high medicinal properties as it is high in magnesium, potassium, phenols, flavonoids, and antioxidants” – elements which are produced thanks to the produced medicinal herbs planted around the cave that the bees feed on. The honey is only harvested once a year.
• A surfboard belonging to an Australian man has been on quite the journey. Tasmanian Danny Griffiths told the ABC that he lost the board while surfing in 2017 off the island state’s south coast. The board apparently drifted for some 16 months before it was found by a pair of fishermen at Magnetic Island, near Townsville in northern Queensland – some 2,700 kilometres away from where it was lost. After unsuccessfully trying to find the owner on social media, the fishermen have displayed it in their home ever since. Griffiths was reunited with the board after the fishermen’s parents recently visited Tasmania and were told about a lost surfboard and put two and two together. “I couldn’t believe it,” said Griffths. Quite.
