Ok, I can't really write too much due to current circumstances (nothing to worry about Mum) and I'm writing this on my phone again. So I'll just write a brief catch up and get some pictures up. But I will go more into this (hopefully) on my next post, I will hopefully have a better understanding of what is going on there and with our favourite dive shop.
So the day after my last post, Peter and I went shopping in Denpasar, Bali for things to bring over to the island with us. And the following day we loaded up the 2nd truck load. We started late into the evening and went into the dark hours (whilst the builders decided to work around us) getting our truck ready to leave for Lombok early Tuesday morning.
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| A truck "over" full |
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| And just a small part of everything else that we were taking |
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| Some of the faces that we saw on our last full day on Bali |
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| And this it what Deb's place looked like when we were leaving on Tuesday morning |
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| Strange but tasty mix of flavours to start our day (this is a biscuit flavour obviously!!!) |
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| On route to the ferry port...a much needed break for the 3 of us cramped in that truck + Driver |
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| Leaving Bali... |
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| ...And arriving onto Lombok |
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| Happy faces |
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| End of the road for the truck. With Gili Trawangan the larger island on the left, our new home |
We were able to get a fast boat sorted on that day, so with two mattresses, and our bags we headed over to Gili Trawangan. Leaving the local girls to offload the rest of the stuff from our truck.
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| Arriving on Gili Trawangan |
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| And our Bungalow set up on our first night. |
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| And our bungalow on our first morning. |
I will now do a bit of a photo dump of our base and the island. But just an update, our rooms and base are slowly getting better. We now have electricity in our rooms, but are still yet to get a toilet on our base. And yesterday I dug a bit more of a trench out for a water waste/plant watering system, and planted my first coconut tree...just to name a few small "non-work" things that I have achieved. We have been around the island a fair few times now, bit of chilling, bit of snorkelling, bit of loving it. I will update more on the snorkelling company (again, hopefully) in my next post, but that's where the current issues are going down, and we wish everyone involved all the best. And we also thank you for everything that you have done for Sandra, Peter and I so far.
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| The land our base is on. |
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| Some of the wood brought over from Bali |
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| Our stuff arriving on Gili T from Lombok |
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| A new friend in our room |
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| Our shower before we ripped the 'walls' down |
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| Waking up at 2:30am last week to watch England loose 2-1 (again) |
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| Kit packs |
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| I love putting things like this together |
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| Before we ripped the walls down, I did shower naked. |
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| This isn't a pose, it is cold water...but fun! |
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| Playing with my camera settings, on an failed attempted to watch the sun rise |
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| But a successful sun set over the other side of the island |
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| On a random bike ride through the middle of the island |
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| Pimpin |
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| Halik and Bounty wreck, two of the areas that we have snorkelled |
So that's really as much as I can write at the moment. Sandra and I decided not to go to Malaysia, and applied for another 30 days on our Indonesian visas, which have been approved. So we will stay here for now. We have booked our flights to Brisbane, so we will leave here on Friday 25th July, and arrive in Australia the following morning (can't wait to get back to my home-from-home. But we have planned a trip on Java before we leave. Tomorrow morning we will be waking up at 4, watch the Germany game (no I haven't switched sides, they're just still in, and we were poor), then we're gonna watch the sun rise, and then we will get the first ferry at 7 over to Lombok, and meet up with our guide and porter, Titeq (who just sounded very enthusiastic on the phone), and starting our 3 day / 2 night trek up Mt Rinjani. More of that to come in my next post.
Good luck to everyone who is on Ramadan, which started yesterday. I could not do it!
And just a quick message about a great friend of my Dad, and a great uncle figure to me, Steve, who sadly passed away Thursday morning. You will be sorely missed. And my deepest thoughts and sympathys go out to Helen, Nadine and Natalie. RIP Steve, much love.
