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Singapore

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Belitung
Indonesia

Belitung Island, Indonesia

1 hour
614km
Bali
Indonesia

Bali, Indonesia

2hrs 20mins
1,620km
Timor
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Timor Sea

2hrs 45mins
2,046km
King Sound
W. Australia

King Sound, Western Australia

3hrs 30mins
2,896km
MacDonnell
Ranges

The MacDonnell Ranges

5 hours
4,156km
Simpson
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Simpson Desert, Australia

5hrs 25mins
4,538km
Murray
Darling Basin

The Murray-Darling Basin

6hrs 30mins
5,487km
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Sydney, Australia's historic city

7hrs 30mins
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Bali, Indonesia

The Wallace Line is a bio-geographic boundary separating Asian species in the west from Australasian species in the east.

Despite being only 35 kilometres apart, Bali and Lombok do not share the same species, as they are separated by the Wallace Line.

Mount Agung is Bali’s highest mountain; standing 3,031 metres high, the volcano is twice the height of Mount Batur, the island’s second highest peak.

Mount Agung, also known as ‘Mother Temple’, and is the holiest site in Bali; according to myth, the mountain was created by the gods to stabilise the wobbling island.

The festival of Nyepi marks the start of the lunar year, and is a day of complete silence and inactivity; all businesses close and no one leaves their homes.

For the Balinese, religion is considered to be art and almost every person on the island spends time creating art work as a means of expressing their faith.

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Flying at 13,000m - The Wallace Line

The Asian Palm Civet is found in Bali but does not occur naturally east of the Wallace Line.

The Sunda pangolin is found on Bali but not Lombok, separated by the Wallace Line and Lombok Strait.

The critically endangered Bali Starling is the island's only endemic bird, meaning that it is not found anywhere else in the world.

This satellite image shows Bali sandwiched between Java, to the west, and Lombok, to the east. The Wallace Line follows the Lombok Strait, separating Bali from Lombok.

A nocturnal tarsier with its distinctive large brown eyes, one of the Asian species only found to the east of the Wallace Line, clings to a tree on the island of Sulawesi.

The Sulawesi crested macaque is one of the endemic species found only on the island of Sulawesi, which lies to the east of the Wallace Line.

A map showing the Wallace Line, which runs off the coast of Borneo between the island and Sulawesi. The Weber and Lydekker Lines are other similar bio-geographical boundaries.

The huge rafflesia flower, up to a metre across and blooming in the wild in Borneo, is one of the many species which only appears west of the Wallace Line and is not present in Australasia.

1908 - A portrait of Alfred Russel Wallace, the British naturalist, explorer, geographer, anthropologist and biologist who proposed the Wallace Line, a natural biogeographic boundary between species.

The imposing Komodo Dragon, found only on a few islands across Indonesia east of the Wallace Line. Their large size is due to few natural predators on the islands.

A red-ring-tailed possum. These marsupials are found only in Australia, Indonesia and Papua New Guinea and exist east of the Wallace Line.

This map of the Earth's tectonic plate boundaries shows a close correlation between the Wallace Line and the boundary between the Eurasian (green) and Australian (orange) plates.

A Sumatran orangutan, found only on the island of Sumatra and not in neighbouring Borneo, is much smaller than its Bornean neighbour - an example of species not crossing water boundaries.

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Flying at 5,000m - A holy volcano

This topographical map of Bali shows the island's volcanoes as white peaks. Mount Agung is the largest volcano on the island, located near the eastern tip.

Pura Besakih temple, the most sacred temple on Bali, narrowly escaped destruction when Mount Agung erupted in 1963.

Mount Agung's conical shape towers over Bali. Its massive crater can be seen here, the result of the 1963 eruption.

Pura Besakih is the most sacred temple in Bali, located on the slopes of the holy mountain Mount Agung.

A temple ceremony being held at Pura Besakih, the Mother Temple, on the slopes of Mount Agung.

Rice paddies can be found in terraces across Bali. Terraces make the most of the hilly landscape and rice thrives in the volcanic soil.

Mount Batur and Mount Agung create a stunning backdrop to this peaceful island.

Mount Batur sits within a larger crater, created by an earlier and much larger volcano.

Mount Batur is another of Bali's active volcanoes. Standing at 1,717m high, it is half the height of Mount Agung.

Overlooking Bali and Mount Agung from Lombok across the Lombok Strait.

The 3,031 metre high peak of Mount Agung is often shrouded in cloud.

Bali is dominated by numerous volcanoes that run the length of the island.

The fertile volcanic soil and humid climate means that Bali has the perfect conditions for farming. Terraced fields such as these can be seen across the island.

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Flying at ground level - The unique culture of Bali

Dance plays an important role in Balinese culture, with several famous dances depicting stories in the Hindu epic the Mahabharata.

Demonic sculptures like these are burned the day before Nyepi festival to rid the island of evil spirits before the start of the new year.

Shadow puppetry is an important art form in Bali, as plays depict stories from the religious epics the Ramayana, Mahabharata or Serat Menak.

Elaborate religious sculptures such as this can be found on many buildings across Bali's cities.

Batik is an important craft in Bali, where wax is used to create elaborate designs on fabric which is then dyed.

Gamelan is an integral part of Indonesian culture, and consists of an orchestra of several types of percussion instruments including xylophones, gongs and drums.

A gamelan orchestra play at the Bali Arts Festival. This unique percussion instrument is central to Balinese celebrations.

Statues outside a Buddhist temple in Bali. Bright colours and elaborate carvings are found across the island.

A Balinese girl performs the Legong Dance. Dance is one of the many expressions of religion that plays a part in Balinese culture.

These huge ogoh-ogoh statues are made of papier mache on bamboo frames. The statues will be burned to ward off evil spirits for the coming year.

School children lead an ogoh-ogoh procession. These statues represent malevolent spirits that will be scared away in time for the new year.

Elaborate papier mache statues known as ogoh-ogoh are made for the night of celebration, before Nyepi, to scare away malevolent spirits.

Huge ogoh-ogoh statues are paraded in the streets of Bali the day before Nyepi to ward off the evil spirits for the coming year.

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© 2013 Royal Geographical Society (with IBG)