Bali

Bali feels like a dream now that we’ve been back 3 whole weeks. In these 3 weeks we’ve had 2 sorry days, the clinic and crèche have been broken into, the shop broken into twice, federal police have visited, someone took a shit in our laundry while we were at work, a blackout that lasted 4 hours in the middle of the day (shop has no generator), start of the wet season yay!, and the lady who works at the clinic had her little silky mauled to death by camp dogs. I’m sure I’ve left something out, but you get the picture.

Today our work colleague got the call from the boss in town saying they were reducing the staff due to low attendance and she will not be required next year. She’s leaving in 2 weeks, and so did enquire with urgency. Who knows what they have planned for us? We don’t appreciate the insecurity, even at the best of times. Anyway we’re all looking forward to drinks tonight at the cattle station.

We found a link to a short video of the music festival that was held at our school back in July. We played at it. We played some Johnny Cash, Violent Femmes, Eddie Vedder & one of Anthea’s originals. There were 4 of us and Anthea and I swapped between violin, guitar, bass & vocals for most songs. Fortunately that footage of us didn’t make it onto this video link. However, the posters we made with kids did make it on.

Link here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1tBM5Ug62g


Here are some photos of Bali. We stayed at Legian Beach Hotel. I recommend it. But we only had 5 nights, which is not enough with these types of jobs, and the fact that it takes 8 hours to drive to Darwin Airport.

We hired a driver for a day trip and an afternoon evening trip. He was very nice and knowledgeable, although he was a little pushy for my liking, like so many other locals working in the very crowded tourist industry there. He made me buy a souvenir Bali plate that has our photo printed on it from a traditional show we attended. We will treasure it forever. It has gone straight to the pool room (that’s the top of the microwave for us).

If we go back I’d probably stay at Seminyak where it’s quieter. We had a good time shopping. And the local food is pretty good if you know where to find it. We also bought 2 beautiful paintings.

Travelling & flat tires.

We're back in town. Along the way we had 2 flat tires. This morning we saw 3 dingo pups running for their lives along the dirt road in front of us as we drove along at 6am. And we nearly had a head-on collision with another car whilst overtaking a road train. We ended up giving the other dog Grover away. But not to the person we got it for because she hasn't been back. That dead dingo in the photo has been on the road all year. That spot is known as "Flat Dog Bend"!

Boabs and Birds

Some more photos from the Gregory National Park trip. On the way home we spotted the bush turkey. They are really tasty apparently. The other bird was from a trip we did to Nitmuluk Gorge a few months ago.

Gregory National Park

The blog is back. After some hard lessons learnt we decided to have a break from it. But we still needed a place to share our photos and stories. So we've decided to continue our current blog. It will focus mainly on our travels as usual.

Our blog started off as a record of our travels around Australia. We only got to do NSW, VIC, low end of NT, SA and TAS before running out of money.

Now we're working up north, which is another adventure all in itself. We have some opportunities to see the beautiful places relatively close to where we live and work. And we hope to see more of the top end - Cape York, Arnhem Land and the Kimberly. Right now it's weekend trips to nearby destinations such as Bullita stock route in Gregory National Park.

LIfe is a Rainbow

South Coast Track December 23-29th

After experiencing the Overland track I really wanted to do some harder walks in Tasmania. After some research and help from cousin Mark we decided to do the South Coast track. It’s an 85km walk between Melaleuca in the west to Cockle Creek in the east. To get to Melaleuca we have the option of boat, walking or flying. We chartered a light plane and flew in on a tiny single engine Cessna 172. It managed to get in a few good photos from the air, including Hobart and the Ironbound ranges we were going to have to cross on day 3

Day 1

The flight was at 11.30am but kept getting delayed due to wind. We eventually got up at about 5pm and got to Melaleuca at 6pm. Howling wind and a bit of sideways rain we walked the 3 ½ hours through buttongrass plains to our campspot along the beach. Bits of fishing rope, buoys and whale bones it was a scene out of Gilligan’s Island.

Day 2

A good walk with a lot of mud and a few rivers to cross. Wet boots from now on! We were extremely lucky to spot a Tasmanian tree frog, which is endemic to Tasmania.

Day 3

Today we had to get over the Ironbound ranges. It took all day. Very steep – 900m ascent over 6km, then back down again in very muddy conditions. So not many photos. It was Christmas day. We were so tired. There were a few other walkers at this spot. I managed to fall head first into the creek.

Day 4

It was to be pancakes for breakfast being Christmas and all, but it just didn’t work on the little Trangia cooker. No butter, no cast iron frying pan and no spatula. So I had pancake mixture instead. Today was a short easy day walk. There was mud. Prion Beach is 4kms long with huge ribbons of leather kelp washed up to shore along with bottles, ropes, fishing stuff and random rubbish. We saw a big rubber thing with a light in it. I later found out it was a piece of deep sea equipment used to measure seismic activity. We also saw a dead seal washed up and half eaten. Teeth like a dog. At the end of Prion beach we crossed the lagoon with the provided boats. It took about an hour and the whole time it was hailing and raining on us. The photo with Anthea in the boat has Precipitous bluff in the background. I hope to come back for it another time. We set up in the rain and we were completely soaked. We had to cook in the tent.

Day 5

This day was an extremely long day (about 4 hours walking) and we were feeling pretty lazy and wet by then. We decided to camp at Surprise Bay which is probably the best spot on the track. In the distance are little islands, I think Flat Top and Round Top islands. . I managed to capture one beautiful sunset. The light and colours are amazing. It’s not always like this, often being overcast or spitting.

Day 6

We had a huge day ahead of us. We walked to Granite Beach about 2 ½ hours. Then it was off to Cape Rivulet. It ended up being a 10 hour day all up, which included about 4-5 hours of mud. Serious above the knee depth mud. We got to Cape Rivulet and a man we had chatted with (then known as the poet) was having a naked swim in the beach. We had to cross the rivulet near the beach because it was the shallowest section. But he was getting out of the surf and we were worried he might want to chat with us without putting his clothes back on. We waded through the rivulet up to the waist and Anthea nearly got swept away. So much for being shallow! The poet did put his clothes on and had a chat with us. The campsites were busy and a few surfers were around. We looked around for a flat spot but came across a big black snake so we decided to get out of the place. We ended up having to walk for over an hour to the next campsite called Lion Rock.

Day 7

The last day. About 3 hours walk. We set up the SPOT PLB (personal locator beacon) so we could send a msg to Mark & Esther saying we were on our way out. We passed a lot of walkers on their way in for a day walk and heard about QLD floods & Sydney to Hobart yacht race.

When Mark picked us up we headed for a café for a hamburger with the lot. Later that night we had T-bone and a good sleep. Hopefully we’ll get back to do a few more walks in the area. It was a challenging walk but not too hard. Beautiful, undisturbed, and rugged.