Travels across Bali

I will start this post with the news that, after 8 months on the road, we will soon be on the way back to the UK! We are today heading on from Bali to Hong Kong and have decided to make that our last port of call on this trip, before flying back to London on May 3rd. We haven't finalised our longer term plans yet: we are likely to be in England at least for the summer months, but we may spend the winter in warmer climbs, pending taking our house back at the end of February 2015.

This may all sound a little sudden, but we have been gradually finding ourselves getting jaded by life on the road. Travelling is always more tiring then one expects, with the constant logistical challenges of researching and planning routes, transport, accommodations etc and keeping up to date with managing personal affairs back home (often from super-slow or non-existent internet connections) not to mention the physical challenges of living out of a rucksack for a long period. Oh yes - and then remembering to actually make some time to enjoy exploring the countries that we are travelling in and to record these experiences for posterity!

So, last week, as we were turning our thoughts to moving on from Hong Kong to South Korea and Japan before heading on to the west coast of Canada, we suddenly realised that this was becoming a chore and that we needed a time-out.

Having learned the Cyrillic alphabet in Russia, Sue realises that it might take several more coffees, before she is ready to take on Korea's Hangul Alphabet

So after that news, let me tell you about the rest of our travels in Bali, since we left Ubud on 7th April. I hope you enjoyed Sue's debut post on the Black Beaches of Bali which started to paint some of our impressions of the island. It's fair to say that our 26 days here have been mixed. The popular impression of Bali, is probably of a tropical holiday paradise, but this is only partially true. As Sue said in our last post, there are very few nice beaches in Bali (and certainly nothing on the wonderful pristine sands that we saw in Australia and New Zealand). This is a densely populated working island and the tourists are generally bundled into luxurious resort enclaves with sculpted pools and manicured tropical gardens. We, of course, hadn't come here to just sit by a pool in a remote resort, which has sometimes made things difficult for us.

One good thing about the tourist infrastructure and the relatively small size of the island, is that it is easy and cost effective to hire a driver. For about £25, one can hire a driver for a full day and they will take you pretty much anywhere on the island. We met a young chap by the name of Made who we hired for 2 days: the first for a tour of the areas around Ubud (including a stop at the dramatic Mount Batur that Sue mentioned in the last post) and the second to take us away from the rice fields of Ubud and onto our second stop in the northern mountains.

We learned a lot from Made. Interestingly, he didn't tell us that his name means literally 'second born son'. We only sussed this out later when we asked someone why we were meeting so many Mades and Wayans - Wayan meaning 'first born son'!

Made did tell us that he had been married for 5 years, that he and his wife were still living with his family (as they saved for their own home) and that he was anxiously awaiting for news that his own Wayan might be on his way! He also told us that he had been very keen not to have to work in the fields and that many people saw jobs in the tourist industry as a way out of this hard life. Interestingly, he told us that ownership of the rice fields was split between small holdings and larger landowners. Larger landowners tended to hire peasants to harvest their rice crop, with the peasants taking 50% of the rice crop in return, in lieu of wages. This sounded remarkably like the system that existed in pre-revolutionary Russia that we had heard about earlier on our travels.

The rice paddies that we drove past with Made were undeniably beautiful: brilliant yellow green fields stepping down from hillside to valley floor, contrasting with the occasional splash of alternate colours from frangipani trees, marigolds and other flowers, the whole scene dotted with little Hindu shrines. The only irritant was that each time we passed a sight that might be of interest to a tourist (even down to a scenic view of a paddy field), we found a road block, with somebody official looking collecting money in return for a crudely printed ticket. We found ourselves constantly doling out rolls of low denomination notes as we travelled!

In the rest of our travels with Made, we got to see numerous interesting and beautiful sights, including old temples, hot springs, mountains and picturesque villages. One village we passed through was readying iself for a religious festival. The festival was unique to this village and only occurs once every 50 to 100 years at a time called by the village elders. Made wasn't quite able to tell us how the date is decided, but seems to be a combination of factors, such as events that have happened and the prosperity of the village. He recalled that his own village had had such a festival when he was a young boy and that this was the only such event that his father could remember. The road in and out of the village was lined with garlanded bamboo poles that curled over at the tops, forming a golden archway as we drove through and villagers dressed in starched white robes were scurrying around making final preparations for the religious ceremonies to come.

A garlanded bamboo archway into a village announces an impending once-in-a-lifetime religious festival

Pilgrims in procession and bathing in the spiritually cleansing waters of the Puranas Tirtha Hindu Temple

The Ulun Danu Hindhu Temple, jutting out into Lake Bratan (one of Bali's largest)

We left Made behind at our hotel, high in the hills at the village of Munduk. Our intention was to stay here for 4 nights and enjoy the cool mountain air and vistas and to do some mountain walking. The views from our hotel, were indeed magnificent, with views across to Gunung Agung (the highest mountain in Bali at 3,142 metres) and a number of other 2,000 metre + peaks. What we hadn't factored in though was the noise. We had expected peace, but instead we had a steady stream of motor bikes roaring up the hill passing within a few feet of our room. It is hard to describe the noise some of these bikes, with their 2-stroke engines and no mufflers, make. The closest I can compare them to is pneumatic drills on wheels! The noise was relentless, but around 2 am, the noise of the engines was replaced by barking dogs.

Room with a view at Munduk, but spoilt by the ear-splitting sound of motorbike engines

A waterfall high up in the mountains at Munduk

We braved it out for 2 nights here, taking a pleasant walk up in the hills to a waterfall that crashed out of a rock face to a plunge pool, but Sue was in a bad way after that, so we baled out and headed on up to the north west coast and the small resort town of Pemuteran.

Pemuteran is famous for its coral reef restoration project which is the largest of its type in the world. The reef in the area had been badly damaged by destructive fishing practices and sea-warming. The project has 're-seeded' the area with 'bio-rock' that acts as a scaffold around which new coral will grow. These bio-rocks are then charged with a low electrical current that encourages more rapid coral growth.

I hired a mask and snorkel and spent a couple of hours swimming over the new and old reef. The earliest bio-rocks are only a little more than 10 years old, but I could already see good new coral thriving and this had brought a great variety of different fish to the area. We have seen a lot of environmental destruction on this trip, so it was encouraging to see a good news story here and a win-win situation: environmental regeneration, enjoyment for tourists, local businesses thriving as a result.

We stayed in Pemuteran at a very nice home-stay. Home stay, simply means that the hotel is locally owned and managed: in this case by Tajuna and his wife, who also employ their sons, daughters, nephews and nieces in the business. We had a good chat with Tajuna and he told us that each year as the business had grown, he had re-invested the profits to build one more room. This year, he was building a new restaurant and spa treatment room away from the noise of the road.

What will always remain in my memory, though, was how nice they were to Sue. They immediately saw that she wasn't feeling well when we arrived and was struggling with the noise from the motorbikes. So they upgraded us at the first chance to a nice room at the furthest point from the road. Each evening for dinner, and in the morning for breakfast, they set us up our own table under a gazebo looking out over the swimming pool and to the mountains in the background. We felt very spoiled and hope that their business continues to thrive!

There was a limited amount to do in Permuteran though, so we continued eastwards along the north cost to another small resort town by the name of Amed. We had thought of staying a week here, but though we had a beautiful room over-looking the sea, we found that they were doing building work, which went on from the crack of dawn to sunset, with only small interludes of peace from the banging and drilling.

The view from our hotel in the low-key east coast resort of Amed

We had one more throw of the dice on Bali and decided to head for 4 nights to the small island of Nusa Lembongan. Here, we struck lucky, though first we had to endure a traumatic journey to get there. We got to the island OK, albeit a pretty rough ride, but once there we found that we weren't yet at our final destination and had 3 options to get to our village on the other side of the island: a 3 mile hike with our packs, on rough paths over the island's highest peak and in 30 degree C heat with high humidity; the same journey on the same paths clinging to the back of a small scooter or a transfer in a much smaller boat. We chose the latter and clung on for dear life as the boat was tossed by the waves that crashed on to the reef and our packs threatened to slide into the sea.

But the worst was to come as we got to our village beach. Our boatman had trouble stopping the boat on the beach and he lurched all over the place in the swell. I managed to get out with the main packs and told Sue to wait while I got them to dry land. As I came back, the boatman was forcing Sue out of the boat, with our day packs (filled with all of our electronics etc) one strapped to her front, one to her back. As she did this, the boat lurched again and Sue went head first into the surf. Fortunately I was almost there and was able to grab her and pull her out of the surf.

Sue emerged from this unscathed, though very distressed, and amazingly all of our electronics were also undamaged. My first instinct was to come to Sue's aid, my second was to threaten our boatman with all forms of physical abuse. His English had been very poor up to that point, but he now understood me perfectly and he fled the scene without collecting his payment! They say 'don't pay the ferryman until he gets you to the other side' - we have now seen this working in practice!

Traumatic as this was, we now found ourselves in a peaceful haven, right off the beaten track and as we had expected to find Bali. We had a large bungalow to ourselves on a cliff-top looking out over a white sand beach with a salt-water infinity pool. The complex had been built quite recently, obviously with the expectation of more tourists coming, but for the moment it was quiet and relaxed and the staff couldn't be nicer to us.

One of the things that we liked most about Nusa Lembongan, was that tourism and local life seemed to mingle easily. There were a couple of upmarket resorts, a cluster of home stays and warungs aimed at backpackers, but around them locals worked in the fields as they always have.

We didn't do too much here, but on one day we hired a scooter and roamed around the island. Sue was terrified initially, but when she saw what mastery I had of the bike (OK she had her eyes tight shut!), she soon relaxed and we had one of the best days of our entire trip. The island was lush green, dotted with tiny villages, protected on one side by mangrove swamp and coral reef and on the other with white sand beaches, swept by surf.

View back towards our initial landing point on the island

Catching a wave on Nusa - there were lots of surfies here who were in their element

The view from our favourite restaurant

Life goes on as usual on the main road across Nusa

The view from our bungalow back across the bay

Biking around Nusa

We also ate as well here as we have anywhere in the world: with fresh fish pulled straight from the sea and onto our plates; fruit and vegetables mostly grown on the island and the chefs in the little warungs had perfected the use of all of the local spices.

A simple, but delicious, fish curry...

...washed down with fresh water-melon juice

So, we are now back safely on Bali's mainland (the way back from Nusa was less traumatic second time around) and will shortly heading to the airport, for our flight back into the northern hemisphere and onto Hong Kong. We will tell you more about this, our final stop, on the next post.

And finally...our boatman - asleep on the job?!

 

Black Beaches of Bali

Andy is taking a well-earned blog break and has temporarily handed over his writer's quill to me. So, here goes ...

Every non-EU country that we have visited has required proof of exit at immigration; understandable maybe for Australia or New Zealand; less so perhaps for say Laos or Cambodia! Anyway, this is how we find ourselves in Bali - Australia's number one holiday-party destination.

Andy remembers having a great time here all those years' ago with Darran and was keen to revisit old haunts, explore previously unvisited ones, and generally see how the island and it's society had changed in all that time. It is a little disconcerting to think that, since 'the boys' were here last, a whole generation has been born, raised, married and is now bearing their own children.

I had visions of us strolling upon soft, white, sandy beaches, fringed with drooping coconut palms and lapped by sparkling, azure sea. Just like those evocative photos in holiday brochures. Right? Wrong!

This is where reading The Lonely Planet guide beforehand, beyond the usual practicalities of accommodation and transport, would have been useful.

Bali is a volcanic island. I knew that! And volcanic islands have black sand, black beaches and murky seas. Of course they do!

New Zealand is volcanic too. But unlike NZ's vast, glistening, coal-black beaches, great swathes of Bali's beaches seem to be more of a narrow strip of ugly, charcoal-grey sand, pebbles and rocks, liberally strewn with litter and dotted with fishing boats. In essence, they're places of work, albeit cleaned up here and there for the exclusive use of luxury hotels' guests.

 



White sand beaches do exist in areas of the island further away from the volcanoes, but being more heavily 'developed ' - or perhaps that should be 'spoiled' - for tourism, we have so far steered a wide berth. However, after two weeks here, we are running out of coastline (the island is small!); therefore, tomorrow, we catch a boat to one of Bali's own, tiny islands (you can walk around it in a day) - with picture-postcard, white sand beaches and blue sea. Yippee!

Snorkelling, diving and surfing are popular tourists' activities here. (It's far too hot and humid to do much beyond wallowing in water, lying under a tree, or remaining motionless in a fan-cooled room.) Andy was brave enough to hire goggles and fins and venture into the murky grey depths to spot tropical fish and coral. I was fortunate at the time to have a cold-cum-Delhi-belly combo, so was able to wriggle out of it. Instead, I watched from the comfort of a tree-shaded sun-lounger and supped on freshly-made watermelon-ice, hoping the un-lifeguarded sea didn't harbour anything of the Jaws variety.

Balinese people appear to use the beach and sea for fishing, ceremonies and rubbish disposal, rather than for recreation, although this is starting to change. It was amusing to watch a small group of boys from a traditional fishing village, frolicking in the sea with their surf boards - a possession of utmost luxury, no doubt.

Now a short bit about volcanoes. Bali has lots of them!

Soaring at 3142 m above sea level stands the great, often cloud-shrouded, Gunung Agung (Mother Mountain).


Close by, at just 1717 m lies the lively Gunung Batur, which is situated in the middle of two concentric calderas, with a large lake on one side. Batur has 3 vents, one of which, if you look closely, is steaming away nicely! She last erupted in 2000 and black, solidified lava is still clearly visible today. Villages hug her sides; the inhabitants maybe being optimistic, ignorant, or just desperate, as Bali's fertile land rapidly disappears under building and road development and the population grows.

Mount Batur, we were warned, is a tourist hot-spot and money-mint, and the vendors are fierce; visit if you must! There's not a great deal to do away from the coastline, so visit we did.

Firstly, we learned that to get close enough to view and photo, costs money. That's fine. Then came the market sellers, who worked us en masse, using a carefully devised strategy of 'divide and conquer'.

Balinese people can be quite small; I'm taller than a good number of the men! However, they can also be very strong - the women, anyway. One group lunged at me with their wares, tying sarongs and scarves around my body, forcing fruit and other items into my hands, whilst pulling my arms and torso in all directions is their desperate attempt to drag me to their stalls, all the while screeching demands for payment.

I looked around in panic for Andy, only to see him a little distance away, being equally mobbed, by what looked like munchkins. He (somehow also wearing a sarong!) was stooping down towards the women and smiling genially. Some hard haggling was going on. He had made the ultimate error of surreptitiously glancing at a T shirt and was now obliged to purchase it. The sizing was XL; fine for a Balinese man; not so for Andy. I now have a new T shirt with BALI emblazoned across the front - just what I've always wanted!

And finally ...

Nothing to do with beaches. Just a decorated statue made from local rock - seen everywhere.

 

 

 

Days of Silence

When surrounded by a constant barrage of noise, moments of silence are to be cherished. Arriving into the hubbub of the Indonesian Island of Bali, we found that not just 'moments' but 'days of silence' awaited us.

But before expanding on that statement, I should set the scene a little. On 28th March, we left Australia without incident and arrived in the early evening in Den Pasar. Anticipating that we might find arriving back into Asia a culture shock, we had booked a week's accommodation in Ubud and a car from the hotel to pick us up.

As we came out of the baggage hall, we looked eagerly for our name amongst the throng of name-boards surrounding the exit. Annoyingly, our name wasn't there and we had to do just what we hadn't wanted - throw ourselves into the scrum of men who tugged and pulled at us, all wanting to take us somewhere to suit their agenda. At least we knew where we were going and how much it would cost, so ignoring all the unwanted attention, we headed first of all for an information centre (who kindly phoned the hotel for us to confirm that they had forgotten to book a taxi) and then to a taxi bureau for some hard haggling on the fare.

It was a Friday night and it took us over 2 hours to make the 25 mile journey from the airport. The population of Bali has exploded in recent years (with nearly 5 million people crammed into less than 6,000 square kilometres, well over double the density of the UK) and it feels like the southern half of the island is now a single conurbation.

I have been to Ubud once before, way back in 1990 and remembered its beautiful setting amongst rice paddies, with a thriving, but low-key arts and crafts community. Much has changed since then, of course. The city centre is now completely engulfed by hotels, shops and restaurants for tourists and this development has now spread out along all of the roads heading in and out and even along the alley-ways that used to lead from the road into the fields.

Out hotel was a good example of the development, which treads a fine-line between sensitive and over-intensive. It has a fairly small frontage onto the evocatively named Monkey Forest Road, but walking through a narrow alley, the complex opened up and ran on for a couple of hundred yards and they had built a few dozen rooms in small 2-storey units around courtyards formed by a swimming pool at one end and rice fields at the other.

The view from our verandah in Ubud, looking over a pool and to rice fields beyond

In spite of all of this over-development and the traffic that clogs it's streets, Ubud retains a certain charm with many old buildings, picturesque scenery and bountiful choices of places to eat and drink.

But where does silence fit into all of this? On our second day, we discovered that we were on the eve of Nyepi, the holiest time in the Balinese Calendar, also known as the Day of Silence, or the Balinese New Year (we are now in the year 1936, in case you hadn't realised!) In the lead up to Nyepi, Balinese Hindus go through a process of spiritual cleansing to clear the decks for the year ahead. For weeks, each of the local villages (Ubud is actually considered to be 13 villages that have grown together) had been quietly building huge puppet-models, called Ogoh-Ogoh: depicting fearsome creatures, crafted in intricate detail and painted in the most garish colours.

On the eve of Nyepi, the Ogoh-Ogoh's moment arrives. They had been mounted onto bamboo poles and were now carried by the villagers in procession to the cross-roads in the centre of Ubud, which is considered to be the most spiritually charged point of the city. It felt like a gathering medieval army: the arrival of each village procession greeted with cheers, as the numbers swelled.

From the crossroads, the full procession set off down Monkey Forest Road, to a communal field where they all collected. The procession was wonderfully vibrant: the paraders, men, women and children of all ages, all dressed in matching shirts and sarongs, laughed and shouted and beat on drums, cymbals or anything else that could make a noise loud enough to frighten off any lurking spirits. Locals not taking part in the parade walked around their homes and gardens bashing pots and pans and waving incense sticks and fire crackers were set off liberally - again all designed to chase out evil spirits. Some of the puppets were so big, that they couldn't pass under the electricity wires and at these points the whole parade came to a comical, sudden halt, whilst a man with a long stick lifted the wires and the puppet was lowered as close to the ground as possible.

Tourists lined the route at some points, but it really felt as though the locals were doing this for their own reasons first and foremost and we were just welcome participants in their party.

After the storm, though, comes the calm. The literal translation of Nyepi, is 'to observe silence' and the following 24 hours is designed to provide a period of calm, quiet spiritual introspection. In practice, this means that for 24 hours, nobody is allowed to leave their homes and visitors are expected to observe this also. An official leaflet we were given said 'this means that you must stay inside, shine no lights, light no fires and no noise or music is to be heard from midnight 30th March until sunrise on 01st April. No motors or vehicles may be used except in dire emergencies'. The leaflet finished with the suggestion that we 'enjoy the rare experience of complete peace and quiet'. We intended to do just that - probably the only time in the year where this can be experienced in Bali.

The day went off pretty much as suggested. Our hotel staff were allowed to prepare food and drink and bring it to our rooms, but other than that we weren't able to leave the hotel grounds. I poked my head out and looked down the street and saw the kind of stillness that one would expect to find in a city post-apocalypse. Even with a head poke though, I was quickly ushered back inside!

The combination of the parades and the subsequent period of silence was a wonderful thing to experience and we felt very privileged to have been here to witness it, as well as pleased that such a religious and cultural rite is still practiced and observed so conscientiously.

Here are some pictures below of the Ogoh-Ogoh puppets on parade. Make up your own mind which might have done the best job of frightening off evil spirits, though the children's was our favourite!

The best (and worst) of the Ogoh-Ogoh at the Ubud Nyepi parade

Monkey Forest Road, Ubud - normally a cacophony of traffic and vendors

Aside from Nyepi, Ubud does have a strong atmosphere of spirituality about it. Everywhere one goes, there are small shrines and, particularly first thing in the morning, it is common to see people laying out small offerings on the pavement: typically a few grains of rice, or some flower blossom wrapped in a banana leaf, usually with a smoking incense stick

Shrines and offerings everywhere in Ubud

These offerings are one of a number of things one has to look out for / avoid treading on whilst walking down the streets of Ubud, the others being: cracked paving slabs that look like they will fall into the sewer below at the next persons tread; motorbikes, particularly when stepping off such broken paving slabs; dogs and their excrement; men trying to sell taxi rides and women trying to sell massages.

Our time here slipped by very quickly though, despite it being hot and dirty and noisy at times. We were certainly helped by having picked a nice place to stay and the staff were so nice, that we forgave them for forgetting to pick us up at the airport. It was also an oasis amongst the hubbub of the Ubud streets, allowing us to dip in and out in easy slices, and had free, unlimited wireless internet, which felt hugely liberating after the frustrations of Australia and New Zealand.

We went out for 2 long walks into the countryside around the city (setting off at first light before the heat of the day); hired a driver to take us on a day tour of the eastern side of the island; had a massage at one of the ubiquitous local spas; walked down to the Monkey Temple at the far end of our road and some of the other temples at the other end of the city and otherwise spent time swimming, relaxing around our pool and trying out the wonderful local food, which is cheap and tasty. Oh yes - and 5 to 7 pm each evening was happy hour for mojitos - how can one turn down 2 for 1 when they weren't expensive to start with?!

The view from our favourite restaurant on the edge of Ubud (the ducks are used to clear out the last rice husks after harvest - in Indonesia, even the ducks love rice!)

I will just elaborate a little on one of these activities. The macaque monkeys at the Monkey Temple were amongst the most aggressive we have come across. Annoyingly they have probably been encouraged in this by the inappropriate behaviour of some locals who want to make money from them (such as selling bananas to feed to them) and some tourists who think they are cute and forget that they are wild animals! The monkeys congregate around a rustic temple complex that runs through a forested river valley. We kept a good distance from them, but were attacked by one who tried to pull Sue's bag out of her hand - even though it contained no food. Fortunately we saw it coming and I was able to ward him off without it getting too nasty, but we got talking to a Canadian guy who was bitten several times by a group of monkeys that tried to steal his water bottle. Fortunately there is no rabies in this troop, but we quickly decided to give them a very wide berth!

Wonder what's on her mind..?

The entrance to the Monkey Temple

Before closing this post, I should just elaborate on why the title of this blog is 'Days of Silence' in the plural. Wednesday 9th April is another important day in Indonesia, being the General Election when they elect their parliament and the precursor to the Presidential Election in the autumn. But, whilst one might expect things to heat up, the last 3 days before polling are designated 'days of silence': no campaigning is allowed and all posters and political banners must be taken down. Hmm - maybe we could learn something from that!

In the next post, I will give you our impressions of the rest of Bali.

And finally...pigs might not be able to fly, but it looks like they CAN do yoga!

 

Aussie and Out

We can barely believe it, but we have now left Australia and effectively started our journey home. So, let us tell you about the last couple of weeks of our time in Oz.


On Saturday 15th March, we headed back from our week's sojourn in the Blue Mountains. On the last day there, Sue had been bitten/stung on her foot by an unidentified insect and we had a few worried hours where we contemplated calling an ambulance, as her leg swelled up. We spoke to the reception of the camp site and they gave a typical Aussie response: a shrug of the shoulders and 'She'll be right - you'd be dead by now if it was anything serious'. Fortunately it went down without any more medical intervention than some anti-histamine, but it was still painful as she hobbled up to Blackeath station for the train back to Sydney. We still don't know what it was that bit/stung her, but there was only a single puncture mark on her foot (which is still visible now), so we suspect that it wasn't a spider.

From Sydney, we jumped on a flight to the Sunshine Coast with Jet Star. Alongside the Hello World travel agency, they are one of two Aussie corporations that we will most definitely not miss. Anyone considering using either of them, should watch out for some of the most misleading advertising / terms and conditions that you will ever find!

But onto more positive things. From the Sunshine Coast, we had decided to book a car for 11 days to allow us more freedom for the journey up the coast to Cairns. Our first stop driving north, was Noosa a pleasant town, with some beautiful stretches of beach and an area of national park, with some great cliff top walks.

I took a swim on Sunshine Beach, which was less a swim than a battle to stand against the huge waves that pounded in off the Pacific. Life guards watched like hawks from the shore and I took the hint that going in past waist deep was probably not sensible. This would be the last beach swim that I would take in Australia, because further north there are dangerous box jelly fish at this time of year that can deliver fatal stings (how many poisonous/life threatening creatures are there exactly in Australia? We've lost count!)

Deciding that surfing here was probably best as a spectator sport, we took a long walk along the beach and up a steep path that led to the Noosa Heads. From here, we got magnificent views for miles down the coast and watched as the sun set over the ocean.

One of the remote beaches north of Noosa

As we headed out of Noosa, the road felt more and more remote and tropical. There was very little traffic and the road stretched on for miles in the distance through forest and bush. I put the car on cruise control, as the local police are apparently zealous and ingenious in equal measure when it comes to speeding and I was anxious to avoid any unnecessary contributions to the Australian Treasury. At around midday, we passed the town of Gympie. We briefly considered stopping for lunch, but decided it was not somewhere we would want to get tied up for long.

Instead, we continued on to Maryborough, which looked like a tiny spot on the map, but turned out to be quite a large historical market town. It's wide streets were lined with impressively regal Victorian era buildings that shimmered and sweltered in the heat. As we turned a corner though, we stumbled on its main claim to fame: a big statue of Mary Poppins - the author was apparently born and raised here!

After a very poor lunch in a Maryborough pub (even Mary Poppins would have found it tough making this medicine go down), we headed on past the line of the Tropic of Capricorn to our stop for the evening of Agnes Water and the Town of 1770. The area is famous for 2 connected facts: firstly this is the southernmost part of the Great Barrier Reef and secondly was the first landing point in Queensland for Captain Cook (presumably because any further north, his ship would have grounded on the reef) in the year 1770.

We holed up here for a couple of nights and on the following day, I went off for a day's snorkelling to the nearest of the reefs at Lady Musgrave Island - a 90 minute boat trip away. Sadly, Sue didn't feel able to manage a whole day out at sea, so I did it on my own, but at least we had booked ourselves into a decent hotel for the 2 nights.

My boat trip wasn't quite as personal as I would have liked, with about 50 people on board a huge boat that roared out to sea in the direction of the reef, but it was an enjoyable day nonetheless. Lady Musgrave Island is a tiny coral cay, probably no more than an acre in size. It is covered by piscina trees that form an interesting, apparently symbiotic, relationship with a variety of roosting sea birds: the trees provide shelter and shade for the birds, whilst the birds provide fertiliser for the trees. I say apparently, because in years of drought, the tree's leaves dry out and become sticky: inevitably then attaching to the birds feathers and preventing them first from flying and finally paralysing them altogether. Last year was very dry and we saw the corpses of numerous birds, unwittingly now providing food for their shelterers. I think it was Milton Friedman who said 'there's no such thing as a free lunch', but I thought he was an economist rather than a botanist!

Although tiny in size, the island is surrounded by a coral wall that is almost exposed at low tide thereby forming a beautiful lagoon to surround the island. As we approached, we could see waves breaking a few hundred metres from the shore and the sea colour changing from dark to azure blue. We spent an hour exploring the island and then had a good couple of hours snorkelling a large area of reef. The marine life wasn't quite as abundant as I was hoping, but I was lucky to swim right over a family of turtles and quite a range of different types of fish with a kaleidoscope of colours, including angel, clown, parrot and butterfly. I swam for hundreds of metres around a wall of coral and at points it was shallow enough to have reached out and touched. There was significant signs of bleaching at points, but at the same time large clusters of healthy, beautifully coloured coral.

Lady Musgrave Island - a coral cay

A barramundi fish, swimming close to the boat

On Wednesday 18th March we continued the journey northwards for a long drive day - about 10 hours of driving all-told. We had decided to break up the coastal scenery, by heading inland just before getting to the industrial city of Mackay for a couple of days in the Eungella National Park. This seemd like a good idea, because we seemed to spend much of the day passing through continuous sugar cane plantation, which paused only briefly in Bundaberg, because this is where they turn the sugar cane into rum!

In the late afternoon, we turned off the main road and, for a while, we seemed to be engulfed on all sides by sugar cane, occasionally crossing small railway lines built to get the crop to market from these remote locations. But the road started to climb gradually so that we could get some perspective and the rolling hills softened the landscape. In the distance we could now see the looming range of the Eungella National Park, one of the largest areas of tropical rainforest in Australia. But also in the distance now, were some pretty menacing storm clouds and we were in a race to get to our destination before nightfall and/or the storm hit.

As dusk started to approach we reached the end of the coastal plain and we started to climb steeply, switchbacking up the mountainside through thick forest. As we ascended, the cloud seemed to descend to meet us, gradually taking away the views back over the sugar cane fields stretching for miles towards the ocean. At times we looked nervously up and down at sheer rock faces, worrying that this looked like prime terrain for rock falls. Fortunately the storm held off until after we arrived at our hotel, though it was pitch black by this time, with not a street light to be seen.

Over the next 36 hours, though, we found out why they call rainforest rainforest - because it rains a lot! Indeed for the duration of our stay here it didn't stop raining, often torrentially and accompanied by howling winds, bending the trees backwards at impossible angles. Our hotel for the next 2 nights was an historic old building and hadn't long reopened after a typhoon had ripped the roof clean off in late 2012. We were upgraded to a supposedly luxurious cabin, but this turned out to be dingy and damp and we couldn't do much but sit and watch the rain drive down, the thick cloud blocking any views, whilst hoping that the new roof would stay attached!

One of the big draws for this area is the presence of duck billed platypus in the rivers. We decided that a potential sighting was worth a soaking and in a brief respite, we made a break for a promising spot by the river, with a viewing platform covered by a canopy of trees. Within 10 minutes of arriving, we got our reward, spotting not just a platypus, but also a family of turtles and an azure kingfisher that darted to and fro across the river, very nearly stealing the show. But the platypus had it, keeping us entranced for ages, disappearing under the water for minutes at a time, then just when we had given up on him breaking to the surface again as if to check whether we were still there. What had been a miserable day, suddenly became memorable.

Surely, no introduction needed!

A turtle and azure kingfisher in the same riverside location at Eungella

After Eungella, we had one more long drive day. We had decided to blast as far as we could (more than 400 miles) to get to Mission Beach and within striking distance from there to Cairns. This would allow us to spend 3 nights and 2 full days in one place: a wonderful looking lodge run by an English couple, with 4 rooms surrounded by beautiful tropical gardens where a family of rare cassowary birds were regular visitors.

But first we had to get there and our drive was punctuated by torrential downpours - some so heavy that we had to stop the car because the wipers couldn't clear the windscreen quickly enough. The further north we went, the heavier the rain seemed to get. This surprised us, because we had heard a few weeks before about serious drought in much of Queensland: this was well and truly over now it seemed.

As we got closer to our destination, the situation started to get more serious. At the town of Tully, shortly before our turn off from the main highway, the road was starting to flood and we found our exit blocked as the road disappeared underwater. As far as we knew, there were only 2 roads in to Mission Beach, so we continued the 20 kms north for the alternative. We were now starting to worry, as the daylight faded and the rain continued to pour down. At the second road, we fared well for a few minutes, until we saw splashing ahead. We slowed and watched as a huge 4wd came slowly through a deep puddle towards us. He wound his window down as we got level, looked us up and down and in typical sarcastic Aussie drawl said 'I wouldn't try and get through there in THAT if I were you' and drove off. THAT, of course, being our poor little hire car!

We turned round and back at the main road called our hosts for the evening. They gave us some directions for an alternative route not even marked on our map. It took us on single track road though with sugar-cane fields on either side, but at least on slightly higher ground. I drove with great trepidation in the near darkness with floodwaters starting to lap at the edge of the road at points. Sue was in a state of some distress when we eventually arrived, but we had arrived safely and now could kick back and relax for a couple of days - there could be far worse places to get stuck then this if it carried on raining!

We decided not to be too ambitious with our couple of days here, so barely left our accommodation: just enjoying the setting, the full-on breakfasts, swimming in the 'jungle pool', reading and writing and talking to our fellow guests (an English women who was there all the time we were, had had the distinction of operating the hawk-eye system at Wimbledon during the London Olympics and caused the wrath of Andy Murray when she couldn't work out how to turn the screen off during rallies!). We also kept an eye out for the occasional visit of a cassowary, but sadly this never coincided with our camera being nearby - if you google them, you will see how striking they are and also why we treated them with a lot of respect!

Our oasis at Mission Beach for 3 days...

...almost halfway between New York and London - and not forgetting Sevenoaks!

The morning after the storm, on Mission Beach

After 3 nights here, the rain had stopped for long enough to let the floodwaters subside and we made a break for Cairns. The Holiday Inn was running a 3 day special and as this coincided with my birthday, we decided to go more up-market than our norm. Cairns has a mixed reputation, with some finding it rather bland and only useful as a base for diving on the Barrier Reef. We quite enjoyed it though, despite arriving in the heaviest rainfall here in more than 2 years. Although there is no beach here, the sea-front is quite lively with people walking up and down at sunset and they have built an artificial beach and lagoon at one end. As we walked past the lagoon on our first evening, a mass aqua-aerobics session was underway, with hundreds of scantily clad tourists jumping up and down in the water to the strains of YMCA by Village People - priceless!

On our final day in the area, we drove a big loop of the Atherton Tablelands, a forested plateau full of dramatic waterfalls and remote villages in the Cairns hinterland. In the evening, in honour of entering my fiftieth year, we treated ourselves to dinner in a sea-food restaurant. It was probably one of the first decent meals that we have had in our 4 months in Australia, that wasn't either Thai, or cooked by one of our friends/family!

One of many dramatic waterfalls on the Atherton Tablelands near Cairns

The famous 'hippie market' in the Atherton Tableland town of Kuranda...

 

Roll over Beethoven - a young boy tinkles the ivories for the shoppers at Kuranda market

Which leads us back to Darwin, our entry and exit point from Australia, with the best part of 4 months in between. Darwin is not one of our favourite places, so we just stopped for one night ahead of our flight out to Bali on the morning of 28th March.

Although we had both been to Australia before, it is easy to forget what a vast country Australia is and how harsh and unforgiving most of it is. The aboriginals adapted to this environment over tens of thousands of years, but the white settlers needed to hard to survive here and even today it must be difficult to thrive away from the main cities.

On this trip, with a decent amount of time, we've managed to see a lot of the eastern half and get under the skin of the country much more than we have managed on previous trips: we've travelled on the ground through the dramatic 'Red Centre'; seen breathtaking scenery, from the sea and cliffs of the Great Ocean Road to the forests of Tasmania and the mountains of the Great Dividing Range; been enchanted (and occasionally frightened) by the unique wildlife here, which we have been hugely fortunate to see in the wild and in their natural settings (kangaroos, wallabies, koalas, possums, bandicoots, echidnas, koalas, kookaburras, parrots, platypus to name a few) and spent some time in Australian cities including Sydney and Melbourne.

Just as importantly, we got to spend some quality time with some of our friends that live here and Sue's family in Melbourne and Canberra. It's a long way here and back (particularly when you do it by road!), so we had to make every moment count.

It was 16 years since our last trip to Australia and it has undoubtedly enriched itself in that time in many ways, including economically, socially and culturally. Although thee remains a special relationship between Australia and the UK (particularly when it comes to beating England at cricket, which I was unfortunate enough to have to witness), the umbilical cord with 'mother England' has been well and truly cut and, if anything Australia takes it's lead now more from the US and Asia.

Economically, success has been fuelled by a global commodities boom, plentiful land, a growing population, free capital and a strengthening relationship with the tiger economies of Asia (nearly a third of Aussie exports go to China, who has voraciously sucked up their resources, as fast as they can be dug out of the ground).

Can this continue? On the one hand, it's singular reliances seem fragile, on the other, why shouldn't it continue, predicated as it is on growing global populations and as the east plays catch-up with the west in their standards of living and quality of infrastructure.

The big elephant in the room though, is whether the earth can sustain these burgeoning populations and lifestyles and this, we think, is where Australia is most vulnerable. It is already seeing the impacts of climate change, with record high temperatures (we experienced 44 degrees in Melbourne and in the centre and it's not fun), forest fires that increasingly encroach on towns and cities, drought, flooding, typhoons and degradation of natural environments. This, it seems, will only intensify and represent an increasingly severe challenge to Australian society.

Anyway, sadly our Australian adventure is now over. It has been a hugely exciting, if sometimes challenging time and we will take many memories with us. As you read this, we are now ensconced on the Indonesian Island of Bali, the 16th country of our journey. In our next post, we will tell you about the start of our journey back into Asia.