The Final Countdown

It's the final countdown! I'm leaving Australia exactly one month from today, on May 22nd. On that day, I will have been in Australia (and Bali) for exactly nine months. In that time, I've traveled approximately 4,600 kilometers, not counting air travel; I've met many amazing people, some of whom I will stay in contact with and hopefully see again in the future; I've experienced countless new species of plants and animals; I've seen a bird the color of the rainbow, a bird that sounds like a howling monkey, and a bird that could damn near swallow me whole; I've seen crocs, a shark, and the world's deadliest snakes and spiders; I held a koala and I held a python; I ate day-fresh crab from the coral sea, I ate kangaroo and crocodile, and I ate strange, delicious fruits picked fresh off the tree; I've snorkeled among the coral on opposite sides of the country; I've walked the beaches, surfed the waves, tasted the wine, soaked the sun, and felt the rain; I've browsed museums in the big cities, and I've smoked homegrown marij - uhh... tobacco with old school mountain hippies; I've slept under twenty two different roofs; And I've had a damn good nine months.

And now starts the countdown....

I will be very sad to leave, but I am also very eager to get back home and back to the real world. I'm itching to get wrenching on my Jeep and to put some seeds in the ground! There are a couple gingers that I miss very much and can't wait to see again, and I know there are plenty of people waiting to see me again.

Anyway, here's some cool night shots of the city that I took.

North Sydney skyline from the park across the street

And a before and after comparison

Back to the starting line

I left Sydney 272 days ago to start my adventure, and now I'm back here to complete the final leg of the trip. But first, we'll finish up in Bali.

We had a couple gnarly rainstorms in our last week in Bali. They were actually pretty exciting; heavy torrents of rain, along with plenty of thunder and lightning.

But we also had plenty of beautiful and pleasant days. For example, the day we took a white water rafting tour. We took a thrilling two hour trip down the Telaga Waja river through stunning rainforest jungles. Surrounding us the whole way were banana, coconut, rambutan, jackfruit, and cocoa trees, along with plenty of rice terraces and tall cliffs. At one point I just happened to be looking up at the overhanging foliage from the cliff above and saw a decent size branch shaking back and forth. At first I thought a large bird must have just taken flight from that branch, until I saw a monkey swinging from the vines, just like in a movie.

The trip back to Aus was fairly hassle free: a six hour overnighter to Sydney and a quick train ride to my Aunt and Uncle's house. Since then I've re-re-acquainted myself with the city, and we've all gone mountain biking at the Manly Dam trail again. That was the third time doing that trail for me, and it was just as fun and muscle-burning as the first two times.

Door to our hotel room at Rumah Roda in Ubud

Mud wasp home in our wall

Cicadas like watermelon juice too...

3+ inch grasshopper on the tree right outside our window

Desert Rose

Tegan, Mike and Fee's wonderful, beautiful Staffie/Sharpe mix

Real-life Garfield, the neighbor's cat

North Sydney skyline from the park across the street

Turns out, I look great in a skirt

Actually, it's called a Sarong.

Walking through the Denpasar airport, it was pretty clear we had entered a third world country. Everything was more or less what I expected it to be; Lots of people, plenty of tourists, a buffet of smells, a smack in the face of heat and humidity; And then... a Starbucks. Why does this not surprise me?

After collecting our bags, we made our way outside and found our taxi driver that our hotel had arranged for us. We piled into the fairly new Suzuki van, and drove North for about an hour, to the city of Ubud. The road rules in Indonesia are... insane? hectic? dangerous? non-existent? All of the above. The only traffic lights are located in the downtown area of big cities, or near the airport. Everything else is basically free reign. I think our driver used his turn signal only once on the entire drive. You don't need a big opening to switch lanes or pass a car, you just, basically, go. And intersections? Whew... There is no right of way, even for pedestrians. As you approach an intersection, you see before you a tangled chaotic mess of steel and flesh. Then you're lost in the midst of it for a brief moment before reappearing, unscathed, on the opposite side. Strangely enough, I found myself completely comfortable with all of this, even smiling to myself at the ridiculousness of it all.

The city of Ubud (all of Bali, really) consists of buildings packed in like sardines between each other, and tons, and tons, and tons of rice fields on the outskirts. In town, buildings are literally built connecting to one another, save for an occasional alley that's hardly wide enough for a scooter to bypass. The main streets are about two lanes wide, but you can't really tell because there are no painted lines on the pavement. Traffic consists of about 90% scooter, 10% other, 100% insanity. Police (Polisi) are few and far between. Everyone and his brother is a taxi driver. You can't walk two metres down main street without being approached by a taxi driver. Our hotel (a B&B recently upgraded to 13 rooms) is on a side street that's just wide enough for one car to drive down. There's a traffic jam every time a scooter tries to go one way when a van is going to other. Darta, the owner, his wife Suti, their son Abut, and Darta's parents all live on the property, as well as the staff during their 4 or 5 day shifts. We were lucky enough to get a room on the top floor (third floor) that overlooks the property and part of the 'neighborhood'.

The four roofs in the right corner here are all part of the hotel. Kajeng street runs left-to-right just beyond the tall thatch roofed building, which is the restaurant.

Sunset, looking out the same window

The family and staff are all about courtesy and service, even though everything is very cheap here. When we arrived in the afternoon on Tuesday, we were graciously greeted by Darta and his son Abut. One of the staff helped with our bags as Darta led us up to our room and gave us the run-down of the whole deal. A bit later we headed down to the restaurant where I had an excellent meal of Gado-Gado; A vegetarian meal of veggies, fried tofu and tempe, covered in peanut sauce, complemented by a crisp, cold Bintang beer. We have yet to have a disappointing meal here in Bali.

Just a ten minute walk from the door of the hotel and we're in the rice paddies, which go on and on and on. Chickens and flocks of ducks are hidden randomly throughout the paddies, grazing on the young seedlings. There are a few hut or shack looking structures throughout the fields, which I can only imagine are used for storing tools, seed, rice sacks, etc., or maybe for taking a rest, under shelter from the hot sun. One day, when walking through the paddies, the route we took not only led us through the rice fields, but also through sections of jungle, where the water ran through the channels and irrigation systems set up for the terraced fields. Here we could find wild banana trees, avocado trees, papaya trees, HUGE spiders, an occasional iguana, and a random art gallery or restaurant, which we all thought was quite strange.

This guy was just as big as the tarantula-sized huntsman spiders that I saw in Queensland, only much higher up on the creepy scale. The unfocused black blob in the background is another of the same kind of spider.

Delicious and fresh Papaya from the markets

The flora here is very reminiscent of what I experienced in northern Queensland. They even grow a lot (a LOT) of my favorite plant that I discovered in Queensland, the Desert Rose. I don't have a picture now, but I'll make sure to get one before we leave.

Monkeys in the Monkey Forest

Full moon out the back window

Thats all for now. We've still got eight days to go here in Ubud. I'll come back with plenty more pictures and stories soon enough.

My Finest Achievement

It's been a bit busy since my last post. We finished our stay at Pentland Alpaca farm after about four weeks there, and returned to the VAC in Albany for my Mom's second workshop there. My Dad and his girlfriend arrived a couple days later in time to celebrate Patrick's late birthday party. From there Patrick and I set out on the road with them to play 'tourist' for two weeks. We've been to the Toffee Factory, Chocolate Factory, and Honey Meadery. We've visited wineries for wine tasting, walked through the canopy of the eucalyptus trees at the TreeTop Walk, and held snakes and parrots at Dinosaur World. We've swam the beaches, collected sea shells, seen the views from the lookouts, and explored the caves all the way up the South Western coast from Albany to Perth.

Young Olive Python, 1.8 meters long

Patrick and a few of his birthday gifts

Chooooocolaaaaate....

Jewel Cave, Augusta: 1.9 km long, sinking 42 meters below surface level, home to the third largest "straw" stalactite in the world

Every single night the four of us play a few games of Euchre. My Dad and grandparents taught my three brothers and I how to play when we were only six or seven years old, and it's become a bit of a tradition to play every time we have at least four of us in one place. So of course, when Dad and Jessica arrived, we decided that every night we should play a bunch of Euchre and drink a bunch of wine. My grandparents are the best Euchre players I know, followed very closely by my Dad, so any victory against him is a great one for me. You can imagine my excitement when Jessi and I beat Patrick and Dad three games to one in one night. I think I would consider that my finest achievement in life.

Finding crabs and things at one of the beaches

Bearded Lizard at DinoWorld. I found a bigger one of these in the wild at the chook farm in Merriwa, though I didn't pick it up because I had no idea if it was harmful or not (close-up pics in one of my first posts)

Scottish Highland cows at Pentland Alpaca Farm

Monty, the Major Mitchell Cockatiel 

Roxy, one of two very friendly dogs at Pentland

I somehow managed to get very close to this butterfly before scaring it off

All snuggled up after wine and Euchre in Augusta

Bit of a sunset at Marmaduke Beach, just West of Magaret River

We had a bit of car trouble with the rental, which brought us to the city of Mandurah to switch out for a new car. This was a bit of a blessing in disguise because not only did we get a vehicle upgrade, but Mandurah turned out to be an awesome town. And we got to see dolphins!

We took a ferry tour out through the canals and channels, the banks of which were covered in multi-million dollar vacation homes, and tons of wetland wildlife.

This one was kind of big. Guest and staff quarters all on the property. All of the houses had their own boat jetty.

Camera-inception?

Some bit from some crustacean I found on a beach

My first attempt at henna tattoo art

Gettin' my 'hurr did' (notice the Euchre deck on the table)

Watching the sunset near Margaret River

On the TreeTop Walk near Walpole

At the lookout over Conspicuous Cliffs

Today we spent most of the day at an awesome beach near Mandurah where I'm pretty sure I got stung by a jellyfish, visited a museum, and finished the day by grilling prawn and crocodile kebabs. And, of course, plenty of Euchre.

We'll continue up the coast to Perth until Saturday, when Dad and Jessica fly back to the states. From there, Mom and John meet up with us again and we fly to Bali for two weeks. Originally, when I was planning my Aus trip, I wanted to hit Bali/Indonesia as well, just because it was so geographically close and I won't have a better chance in life to do it, but a tight budget had since convinced me to stick to the mainland. However, now that a trip to Bali would include time there with family, and I got a nice cash bonus for my 21st birthday, I've decided to buy a plane ticket. We'll be there for two weeks