Nauru · NR

Buada Lagoon

On a flat, sun-baked island barely eight square miles wide, Buada Lagoon feels like a small miracle. It is the only true lake in Nauru, a quiet green basin tucked into the centre of the island about a kilometre from the coast, ringed by the kind of dense tropical vegetation that phosphate mining stripped away everywhere else. While much of Nauru's interior is a moonscape of bare limestone pinnacles, the lagoon sits in a pocket of shade where pandanus trees, breadfruit groves, and tangled undergrowth still grow as they might have centuries ago. For travellers arriving on this least-visited Pacific republic, the contrast is striking: one minute the landscape is stark and industrial, the next you are stepping into a humid, leafy bowl alive with birdsong and village life. The walk around Buada Lagoon takes roughly two hours on a loop of easy, mostly flat paths threading between private gardens, small homes, and the water's edge. There are no boardwalks or visitor centres, just footpaths and a road circling the depression. Short informal climbs along the rim give you unexpected panoramic views over the whole bowl, the scattered houses below, and the way the lush green slopes meet the sky. The lagoon itself is oval, around 280 metres long, with still greenish water that reflects the canopy overhead. It is shallow, no more than five metres deep at its fullest, and fed only by rainwater with no river flowing into it or out.