The Hippy Life Through the Kimberly

Would we do mango picking again...no!  A week of severe mango rash, a trip to A&E and a course of steroids have definitely put an end to our mango career; we shall look for less dangerous fruit in the future!

We eventually left Katherine and headed West along the Victoria Highway.  I am pleased to report that the van is running well and we’re averaging about 300km a day.  The roads are pretty much straight and long, with not much traffic (about a car every half hour).   It is the start of the rainy season in the north, so it has been really hot, approaching 40degrees some days.  We’ve seen lots of lightening in the distance, the electrical storms are impressive, although it was slightly unnerving when we were caught in one! 

To save the pennies we’re doing quite a lot of free camping rather than staying on sites.  It has been a great experience and has felt like we’re truly living the hippy life in our retro van, cooking on the gas stove, showering with a hose, Chris playing his guitar and us experiencing the awful compost, fly ridden toilets!  The locations of the free campsites have been awesome; some days we’ll be in a National Park watching all the parrots & Birds of Prey then other days we’ll be in a rest spot on the highway overlooking a gorge and the bright stars, nothing around us for 100s of kilometres in any direction.  It is vast!

This part of our trip is mostly about the scenery and National Parks.  We began with the green Gregory National Park, then to the small Keep River National Park.  Once over the border to Western Australia we saw the beautiful Lake Argyle and the red rocked Mirima National Park which is a mini Bungle Bungle Range.  We’ve also stopped in Halls Creek to visit to China Wall, a natural occurring Limestone wall that runs for over 100km and then onto Geikie Gorge National Park for another scenic walk, this time to admire the limestone rock formations.  It is all so beautiful and what you imagine ‘the real Australia’ to be all about, especially the red rock.  We’re enjoying the wildlife too, seeing lots of wallabies, hundreds of birds, 2 dingoes and a variety of lizards (the frilled neck variety being our favourites).

Having the freedom of the van is amazing and it is making this part of the trip feel very special.  We are destined to get to Broome soon, very excited to see the white sands of Cable Beach and the camels!

Lots of love, miss you all!

Kat & Chris xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Mango Lovers United

Fresh from completing 53 hours of Mango picking with sore hands, scabbing legs, rashes and the inability to use our thumbs without pain we’re enjoying a day off! Mango picking isn’t difficult it’s just mind numbingly boring as it is repetitive work over 10 hour days. You pick the round, plump looking mangos that aren’t yet ripe from the trees and throw them into a huge, noisy mango washing machine that is driven alongside you whilst you pick. Each time you pick a mango, you break the stem and an acid sprays out which burns skin and can turn your skin a reddish brown colour as we have both found out!

Some facts for you:

·         Each 400g bin filled with Mangos is worth $4000 to the farmers

·         Generally there are four picking teams that collect over 100 bins a day

·         Mango picking can cause trench foot

·         Every harvest the company makes around 4 million Australian Dollars from the Mangos

·         Kat and Chris had to throw away 4 pairs of socks due to a smell that just wouldn’t leave

·         All the Mangos are just for the Australian market

·         There is a high turnover of staff

·         You can buy one of our handpicked mangos from the supermarket for $1.75 (just over £1!)

We met some great people whilst picking and Kat even got to use her medical skills to assist with an industrial accident where a picker got run over by one of the mango washing machines which got as far as his chest before reversing off – amazingly he was fine, just very bruised!

Would we do it again? Yes, but only once we’ve recovered from these past six days! The next fruit we might try our hands at once we’ve driven the West Coast are strawberries or cherries.

C & K xxx

The One When They Buy ‘Lola’ and Hit the Road!

So we had a very busy and fairly stressful week in Darwin organising bank accounts, Aussie phone, tax file numbers, replacing the camera I lost, trying to fix the laptop cable and of course campervan hunting!  In-between the organising frenzy we did a little bit of sightseeing in Darwin, the highlight being our walk to East Point and Fannie Bay – we saw a crocodile on the beach!  It was only a baby one, so we were more concerned about where its Mum might be hiding!  No swimming allowed because it’s box jellyfish season, but after seeing the Croc I’m not sure you’d get me in there anyway!

Anyway, back to the van.  The van hunt was not as easy as we’d hoped.  There weren’t a lot of campers around in Darwin as it is approaching the wet season (we have heard some amazing thunder whilst we were there but not much rain....yet!)  so people aren’t really travelling up this way.  We had 3 failed attempts at buying, one sold before we saw it, one owner just messed us about so much we gave up and another van badly failed its service.  The 4^th beauty was a 1979 Toyota Hiace. 

We like to call her Lola.  You may call her old, we like to refer to her as ‘vintage’.  She belonged to an old couple for most of her life and then a Kiwi mechanic took her on before us.  She has only done 142,000KM and has classic features such as the yellow mustard classic Toyota coloured exterior, the delightful orange and brown pinstriped seating, the pop top with carpeted ceiling, the original user manual and service guide, and a spirit level on the steering wheel so that you know when you’re parked on a hill.  New additions to her spec. include a tele, a microwave, a fan and a new sound system up front!  She drives well, slow and steady – no power steering nor ABS breaking and the gears are on the steering column so it takes some getting used to!  She gets lots of attention, lots of comments from people (mostly compliments!)2 people have tried to buy her from us already and waves from passing vehicles.  It’s pretty cool that Chris’ first car is a ’79 Hiace that we live in, in Australia!!

Our first night in the van we got given a flyer to a local rodeo with the promise of free camping – so we decided it’d be rude not to!  The rodeo was fantastic, bull riding, horse riding, motocross tricks, fireworks and a live band.  The bull riding was brilliant, the guys that do it must be mad – some of the falls were awful but when a cowboy gets it right it looks amazing!  Our favourite bull was Saltrock, nobody has ever ridden him for the full 8seconds, there is a huge cash prize if anybody ever manages it – sure enough 1 buck and rear and the cowboy was off – 2 seconds flat...but then Saltrock, enjoying the limelight wouldn’t leave the ring after about 30mins of coaxing they gave up and built him a different pen to stay in!

Our first morning in our campervan did not go as smoothly as planned...we had managed to drain both our batteries by leaving the fridge on instead of switching it to gas...yes we are stupid.  But lucky for us some of the hungover/still drinking Aussies from the rodeo had jump leads and after taking the piss considerably, they helped us out and we were on the road again...feeling a little sheepish!

We headed to the Territory Wildlife Park.  This is kind of a zoo but only with native creatures from Australia and mostly things that you can find in the Top End.  We started the day feeding the Archer fish – you hold out a maggot as if you were a tree and they spit on your hand to release the maggot – very clever!  I then helped feed the Whiprays (a type of stingray).  Then we went to the Birds of Prey presentation which was just brilliant, we saw Buzzards, Kites, Owls, Parrots, Eagle and Storks.  We went on a walk to the Billabong and saw some Pelicans and turtles and then went to the Aquarium to see the Barramundi and the prehistoric looking Sawfish.  After this we entered Lichfield National Park and I organised and set up the van to our liking whilst Chris battled with hundreds of bugs whilst he tried to cook tea – note to ourselves, do not cook outside after dark with a lamp...!



And the next day...our van woes were not over – another none starter!  Confused as we had used a trickle charger over night and upset as we were stuck on site!  A bearded fellow called Ken came to our rescue!  His car wasn’t able to jump us, so he towed us until she started and we headed to a mechanic...long drawn out story, but basically the 2^nd battery had no water in it and wouldn’t hold a charge (who knew it needed water!) and was therefore flattening the 1^st.  So all sorted out, we headed back into the National Park and successfully started Lola the next morning.

Lichfield NP is much more green than we expected, lots of trees and grass, it’s not the rocky, barren Australia that we expected.  We’ve seen termite mounds that are about 15ft. High, beautiful waterfalls and lovely refreshing plunge pools to bathe in.  Also at both our camp sites we’ve watched wallabies and kangaroos!  It’s really quiet around the parks and you feel like you’re seeing an undiscovered secret.  For the friendly people, awesome wildlife and beautiful waterfalls I would definitely recommend Australia’s Top End.

We are now staying in a camp site that also seems to be a bar, golf course, rodeo stadium or horse track depending what day it is!  We’re heading towards Katherine tomorrow, hoping to pick up a bit of Mango picking to help pay for our van insurance and its registration.  From there we head over to The Kimberly and to Western Australia.

Lots of love,   Kat & Chris xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

What We Did Until Australia

We’ve now landed in Australia, Darwin to be precise! We really enjoyed our time in Asia but we’re glad for a change and are looking forward to getting our own little van to tour the country in.

Carrying on from where Kat left off we spent another day in Amed enjoying the snorkelling, visiting the viewpoint and Kat’s mum even had a massage! After Amed we travelled to Ubud – the cultural centre of Bali and took in a fire dance show which featured music created with hundreds of voices, fabulous costumes, actors with bulging eyes, a monkey army and a man in a ‘trance’ who kicks and walks over burning hot coconut coals! All very entertaining!

The next day we visited the monkey forest where the mischievous monkeys roam free amidst temple complexes set in a forest. Not only were these picturesque surroundings but monkeys are always good fun to watch. Some people were a bit too wary though as we saw a German man carrying a stout stick and one woman kick a monkey into a river! The poor thing! For the rest of the time in Ubud we wandered the streets browsing its many stores and took a walk to see the rice and wheat fields stretching into the horizon – they look more impressive than this sounds!

For Rhona’s final day we travelled back to Kuta, did some more shopping, Kat and her mum did the tickly fish spa, walked along the beach, had a ice cream, watched the sun set with a beer and then took Kat’s mum to the airport to say goodbye.

The next day we planned to leave Kuta as quickly as possible as it’s a bit of a dive. The destination we picked was the Gilli Island’s just off of Lombok as everybody has always told us how good it is. Unfortunately my watch’s alarm had other ideas as we never heard it and managed to miss our mini-bus to Lombok waking up 20 minutes too late!!! Luckily the company we were using said we could use our ticket the next day for no extra charge which was great news but we did have to spend another night in Kuta L

The next morning with three alarms set we made it on time to get our transfer and caught the ferry over to Lombok where we eventually got to Gilli Trawangan the next day after spending the night in Sengigi - a beach town on Lombok with the most annoying touts and thousands of them!

We spent a nice relaxing five nights on Gilli Trawangan. Most days just consisting of walking around the small island, dipping into the sea, reading, eating good food and buying fresh mangos from the same lady each day. We did a great snorkelling day trip around the 3 islands where the highlight was seeing about 5 - 6 turtles swimming about or resting on the ocean floor. The island itself wasn’t an amazing place as it feels slightly too developed so you just feel like you’re on the mainland – it even has an Aldi supermarket! That’s not to say we didn’t enjoy it because we did but it’s a long way from the tropical paradise you might imagine.

After all that relaxing we had a bit of a horrible day travelling back to Bali. The ferry took the usual four hours to travel between Lombok and Kuta but then didn’t dock in Bali for five more hours due to construction work. We left Gilli Trawangan at 8:00am and arrived to Kuta in Bali at 12:00am. A very long day!

Love Chris & Kat xxx

More Dives, Surfing and Mummy has Landed!

And enjoy island life we did, due to a religious day where the Balinese honour the spirits of the water by not going in and on the water we were stranded!  No boats, no diving, no swimming!  So we had a day of walking around the island, visiting the mangroves and up to the cliffs to watch the crashing waves. 

The next day, with all water gods happy, we were back in the water for our next 2 dives.  We were told that ‘it’s like being in an aquarium’ and that description did not disappoint at all!  So many fish, you could feel quite dizzy trying to take it all in!  The water was much warmer too, a delightful 27degrees and we even saw a turtle (much to my excitement!)  And this was our first go at drift diving, we got in and let the current take us along the reef – which seemed to go on for miles, then the boat just picked us up when we popped up an hour later!  Our second dive began brilliantly, we went down and instantly found a 2m tall Mola Mola staring at us!  They are really ugly but cute kind of fish, rather rare and almost never seen at the spot we were diving – so lucky!  The rest of the dive again was like being put in a tropical aquarium, we saw huge schools of BIG trevley and tuna.  We thought a huge boat went over, there was a huge vibration that was so loud we all had to cover our ears – when we got out we were told it was a 6.8 earthquake!  Luckily no Tsunami waves followed, although there was a tremor later when we headed back to land.

After our dives and a little short on cash (no ATMs on the island) we headed to Bali and Kuta.  Kuta, well is the Ausie Benidorm we soon got used to seeing stag dos having Bintangs for breakfast!  The plus side to Kuta was the cheap, good food that we found at ‘Gongs’ and the surf!  We signed up to a surf school and with our 2 metre longboards we headed out to catch them waves!  Chris really picked it up quickly and was paddling himself out and catching (or not!) the waves.  He stood up really quickly too and makes it look fairly cool in the photos!  I was a slower bloomer, the guys would help take me out, they’d push me into a wave and shout “stand up” and watch as I fell down!  I did get it a few times though, my first stand was magnificent and I sailed all the way to the beach...where I promptly face planted into the sand!  But when you get it, it feels good and we’d have loved another go, but the swell got a bit wild for us beginners so maybe next time we’re in Kuta we’ll try again if its calmer!

Rhona & Kat at Git-Git Waterfalls

Mum arrived and we met her after jogging to the airport – we had planned to walk to save on taxi money, but a road was closed and it added 2km to our journey, worrying we’d be late we jogged the rest of the way to greet mum with a sweaty hug!  We stayed in Kuta for the night then whisked mum off to Lovina to a beautiful hotel with a pool (ahhh a pool!)  We had a great day visiting GitGit waterfalls, a Buddhist Temple and Banjar Hot Springs which left us all feeling thoroughly relaxed.   The next morning we woke for sunrise and got on our tiny boat to see the Bottlenose Dolphins.  There were hundreds, swimming all around the boat it was amazing to see them all.  Today we have moved onto Amed and we have all been snorkelling off the beach, the reef is only 10metres out and it has an array of tropical fish and coral to see, really good fun!

So Many Dolphins!

Lots of love Kat & Chris xxxx

Climbing Volcanoes & Diving with the Ray’s

We booked a two day trip to visit Mt Bromo and the Ijen crater (sulphur mine) from Yogyakarta. This trip included all transport along the very potholed ‘roads’, lovely expensive hotels (but they are in the middle of nowhere) and two breakfasts consisting of bread, jam and a tiny inch long banana and the next day a boiled egg and a chocolate sprinkles sandwich – just what you want when you’re about to visit a sulphur mine!

Mt Bromo was amazing, we had a jeep transport us just before sunrise to a viewpoint high up in the nearby mountains where we saw all three volcanoes in the area surrounded in low lying mist slowly being lit up as the sun turned the sky pink to clear bright blue. After an hour and a half and the sun firmly in the sky the jeep took us down to the base of Mt Bromo so that we could climb to the top (there are sand covered steps) and peer into the smoking crater. We liken the landscape to how you would imagine Mars or the Moon to look just desolate desert stretching for miles in every direction.

The following morning we visited Mt Ijen where there is an active sulphur mine. Upon arrival we climbed up an exhausting 3km track along with some of the very friendly miners some of whom were on their third trip to reach the crater and then we descended to the bottom of Ijen’s interior to admire the turquoise sulphur lake and all the hard work transpiring at the mine. We found the trip hard work but the miners do it all whilst carrying up to 100kg (H&S Regulations?!) of sulphur freshly chiselled from the bowels of Ijen and they earn about $13 (US Dollars) a day for their efforts, yet still they have the cheer to say “hello” whenever you pass them!!! Kat and I both think that the miners keep a tally of nationalities somewhere as every one of them asks you “Where are you from?” and then nods sagely at your response. It was a fantastic trip and testament to the human spirit that the miners can wake up each morning and do 3 or 4 more trips. As with all of Java the scenery was amazing.

We caught the ferry over to Bali later that day and made our way to Sanur which is described in our collection of used pages from 2005’s Lonely Planet as ‘Kuta with a Cardigan’ – what a lovely description! Kuta is a bit of a rough and ready beach resort for heavy drinkers looking for sun, sea and surf. Sanur has all this but with a bit more class and naturally, higher price tags L First impressions of Bali are that it’s a lot more built up than Java (besides Jakarta) and traffic seems congested in the main cities but there is still beautiful coastlines, coconut trees and rice paddies to brighten up the views.

The main reason we stopped in Sanur besides a day off from travelling every day and early sunrise starts was to get the slow boat over to Nusa Lembongan to do some more dives. Little did we know when we booked the ticket and got told to turn up at 7:30am the next day that we were still running on Java time which is an hour behind Bali – we did think the sun went down early! So we missed the first slow boat but luckily transferred to the 10:30 boat with no issues except for the locals laughing at us.

Nusa Lembongan is a small island with a penchant for seaweed cultivating / harvesting to be exported and then used in cosmetics, shampoos etc. I think we were expecting another Perhentian Islands (where we dived in Malaysia) experience with nearly deserted beaches and a handful of guesthouses and cafes so were initially disappointed with the small boats everywhere, coral strewn beaches and rectangular patches of seaweed filled sea (like a farm’s fields) and the island seemed pretty built up and busy. Then we realised how great it is to sit back and watch the local seaweed fishermen go about collecting, drying, packing and replanting their seaweed in the crystal clear waters and the tourism hasn’t affected this one little bit.

This morning we did 2 freezing cold dives (18 degrees at one point!) with the main aim of seeing Manta Rays and what a sight they were as they gracefully swooped over our heads! The biggest was about 2.5 – 3 meters long and there were about 5 or 6 rays in the area we dived which is a cleaning station for the Rays. The next dive had a visibility of 25 meters and the coral and fishes we saw were so vibrant because of the clear water. We had some fairly strong currents and it was distractingly cold but it was another great dive.

We’re now weighing up whether to do some more dives in the area before we head back to Bali and meet Kat’s mum on the 16th. In the meantime I think we’ll enjoy island life some more.

Love Chris & Kat xxx

End of Malaysia, A Memorable Entrance to Singapore & Java First Thoughts

So our return to Kuala Lumpur was soured by us both picking up the flu!  We stayed a couple of days to organise a few things (like our Indonesia visa and picking up the fixed Sony Camera) but then once both us could survive without being next to a toilet we headed to Melaka!  Melaka was where we chose to recuperate and as we were both still a little ill, we decided to spend almost a week there – almost unheard of for us to stay somewhere so long!  It’s a nice little town, full of history of English, Portuguese and Dutch invasions, full of culture having a China town and a Little India and it had nice cafes, a big shopping mall and home comforts such as Pizza Hut for when we started to eat again!  We didn’t do a lot but the week went quickly and soon we were feeling well enough to move on again.

Our next destination was Singapore.  We had been very lucky and met a lovely English couple (hello Alice & Con) when we were in the Perhentian Islands and they very kindly offered us their spare room in Singapore!  This was great news as Singapore is expensive.  As any good house guest we brought a bottle of wine with us as thanks; not realising that you are not allowed to bring anything over from Malaysia to Singapore!  So we got stopped at the border, Chris got taken into a room and after some form filling the great ‘fine city’ issued him with a $8 bill and we were on our way...or so we thought!  The bus had only gone and left us there!  And we had only 1ringgit and 1Singapore Dollar (courtesy of Canadian Kyle) and not an ATM in sight.  After a minor panic, lots of pacing up and down and worried looks, a coach driver took pity on us and let us on his bus for the measly 70p we owned!  Sadly his bus went in the opposite direction to where we wanted to be – but we made it into Singapore and to Alice & Con, only a mere 2hours later than planned – they appreciated the wine too.

Pulau Ubin

We had a great few days in Singapore.  We enjoyed a walk, hawker food, beers and some drunken tree climbing on our first night at the East Coast Park.  On the 2^nd day Alice & Con took us to the beautiful Pulau Ubin.  We went over on a bumboat from the mainland and then hired bicycles to explore the island.  We admired the scenery, from turquoise lakes to the mangroves and we saw plenty of wildlife; hornbills (!) monkeys, lizards, fiddler crabs with their one huge pincer and lung fish - it was great.  The 3^rd day we explored the marina area to see the skyscrapers, shopping malls, theatres and huge casino that has 3 hotel blocks with a huge boat lying on the top of them on the 57^th floor – it was very Vegas!  Our last day we decided to go to the zoo as so many people have told us how good it is and it didn’t disappoint.  The enclosures are all quite big (the Orang-utans are free roaming) and the animals seem well stimulated.  We spent the whole day there, mostly entertained by the various monkeys, gibbons & apes!  We also saw Komodo Dragon being fed, Giant tortoises, White Tigers and Pygmy Hippos to name but a few! For our last evening we were spoilt by Alice & Con and we got taken to an Ex-pat place that did amazing egg, chips & beans and had a big cider collection!  We enjoyed a Westons Cider & a Hobgoblin – oh how we’ve missed them!

Over to Java and back to haggling Asia!  We had almost forgotten what it was like after being spoilt in Malaysia!  Everyone has been very friendly so far, although they normally want to sell you something!  We have done a lot of travelling so far, as we didn’t want to spend much time in Jakarta.  The trains have been really nice as we’ve plumped for slightly more expensive business class (less chickens & goats!), the journeys scenic – paddy fields, hills, volcanoes and coconut trees and the temperature has been surprisingly pleasant, not nearly as sweaty as we expected!  We are now in Yogyakarta which has a nice backpack feel to it.  We went to Borobudur today, a cool Buddhist Temple which has dozens of latticed stupas (look like bells) which each contain a Buddha.  The scenery was amazing with volcanoes in the distance and the early morning light (we were there at 6am!) made it look all the more impressive.

Next we head to Mount Bromo (a volcano) and another early morning wake up; as every tourist knows – you need that sunrise picture for your collection!

Lots of Love K&C xxxxxxxxxxxxx