Bakau Crocodile Pool, Abuko Nature Reserve, Bijilo Park and Atlantic Beaches

Ten minutes west of Denton Bridge and Banjul Island, the mainland Kombo coastline opens onto a belt of cliff-top fishing towns, protected gallery rainforests, tidal birding lagoons and palm-fringed Atlantic beaches.

Bakau: Kachikally Crocodile Pool and the Botanic Gardens

Closest to Banjul sits the coastal town of Bakau, perched on red laterite cliffs above Cape Point. Tucked inside a shaded woodland grove in the old quarter of Bakau is the Kachikally Crocodile Pool, a sacred site privately owned and stewarded for generations by the Bojang clan. Before walking down to the water, step through the open-air ethnographic museum explaining Mandinka and Jola coming-of-age traditions, historic Kankurang masquerades and traditional farming tools. At the spring-fed pool (whose waters are traditionally visited by women praying for fertility), dozens of calm, fish-fed West African crocodiles sunbathe along the grassy banks beneath giant silk-cotton trees. Five minutes away on Atlantic Road, stroll through the shaded Bakau Botanic Gardens and watch painted fishing canoes land along Bakau's harbour beach.

Abuko Nature Reserve, Bijilo Forest Park and Kotu Creek

For wildlife and birdwatching within twenty minutes of any coastal hotel, three protected areas stand out:

• Abuko Nature Reserve: protected since 1916 around the Lamin Stream, Abuko preserves a rare ribbon of evergreen gallery rainforest. Walking the two-hour loop trail past wooden viewing hides at Darwin's Pool and Bamboo Pool brings close sightings of endangered Western red colobus monkeys, green vervet monkeys, red-bellied patas monkeys, Nile monitor lizards, palm-nut vultures and colourful turacos.
• Bijilo Forest Park (Monkey Park) and Kololi / Kotu Beaches: right behind the beach at Kololi, sandy footpaths wind through coastal fan-palm scrub inhabited by troops of red colobus and vervet monkeys. Step straight out of the trees onto the wide golden sands of Kotu and Kololi for a swim and lunch.
• Kotu Bridge and Lamin Lodge Mangroves: arrive at Kotu Creek bridge in the early morning to hire an official bird guide, or take a late-afternoon wooden pirogue trip through the mangrove oyster creeks from stilted timber Lamin Lodge.