Background
< style="text-align: center;">Rennell Island is part of the province of Rennell and Bellona which is the smallest province in the Solomon Islands (by a wide margin). It is also ethnically Polynesian, whereas the rest of the Solomons is Melanesian. Geographically, it is also isolated from the rest of the Solomons, sitting to the south of the main archipelago. If you look at the satellite photo of Rennell above, you can see that the most distinctive feature of the island is Lake Tegano. Tegano is a slightly brackish lake which is home to an enormous variety of birds, some of which are only found on Rennell. The Eastern part of the island has also been declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO, the only one in the South Pacific other than Easter Island. The population of Rennell is about 2,000 people. Geologically, the island is an uplifted coral atoll. As such, the entire island is surrounded by cliffs ranging from 300 to 1000 feet high and all the land surface is a rocky limestone with very thin soil.
The unique nature of the island, in all respects, is why I wanted to visit.
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