Day 88

Day 88 Bali

As from yesterday, you may have gathered that we are no longer in Australia, we are in Bali. Well we started the day with breakfast. Tia, Lesley, Sam and Rebecca had arranged a day tour already so we tagged along. The tour was to see some Balinese dancing, then silver works, then wood works, then monkey forest and then back to Legian. That was fine to start with, we got to the silver works and as usual the umpteen steps were too much for me so the tour guide and I sat outside and had coffee and biscuits with the other drivers. After the silver works we hijacked the tour and decided that we would go to Ubud direct. The wood works where not much use as you have problems with customs and such. We had some pictures from when we were here earlier in the year and we wanted to show them our rooms at the Bali Rich. We had intended to mail the pictures to the Bali Rich so they could hand them out, but the tour was going to Ubud so it was a win win. Ubud was chockers. The traffic was at a standstill as they were doing major re-curbing work as well as building a huge wood structure for some ones funeral and had shut down the street. There is a lovely café here called Casa Luna and we love their cakes. As the traffic was so slow we put the girls out and they walked down the road to the café to buy the cakes. The tour guide got out as well to see where they were going and on the way back picked up a coffee for me and the driver, talk about service – I love Bali coffee, so much better than at home. As the traffic got to the shop, the girls were ready, hopped in and away we went to Bali Rich.

The staff there remembered us and made a fuss of Maureen and showed them around the rooms and came out to see me. The place is just as we remembered it. We then loaded up and drove back to Legian. We had dinner and ended up back at the hotel for a swim.

The blog will suffer because of our time here in Bali.  I will do a special blog when we get back with pictures when I get on to my own computer.

Day 87

Day 87

You will not believe where we are. We went for a drive last night in the rain, turned left, it got even wetter for a while then when we looked again, we were in Bali!

But I am getting ahead of myself. We started the day packing up Girt. We moved her down to the parking area and at about 11 we went into town to catch up with our lovely niece Jessica Martyn. Jessica has been in Darwin for some time now with her medical studies and the Army. We texted her when we got into town but she was working all the weekend and we finally were able to catch her. It was nice to catch up for a coffee and hear what she was up to. We said our good byes and went over to Casuarina shopping for some lunch and then down to the museum. We were not in the best of moods at the time as I will explain a little later and we just wanted to get on the plane. Our flight was at 7:30 so we had a bit of time. I will explain now how our trip came about.

It is a really funny story. When we started out on our odyssey, our timeline was that we would be through Darwin before thee end of September and our daughter Tia was going to Bali in October and she wanted us to fly out and meet her. We said no as we would not be there, well as you know our timeline went all potty so a few weeks ago we realised we would be in Darwin in October so we booked our tickets and we thought we would surprise her. Tia was very nervous about the trip as it was her first without us and although she was travelling with Sam’s mum and sister, they were coming back early leaving her and Sam for a few days. We thought we would arrive before Lesley and Rebecca left and stay until Tia left and this would mean Tia and Maureen would have their birthdays together. Great plan, what could go wrong? (heard this before?) We thought we had done very well in keeping our secret when talking to Tia when she was saying she was nervous and a couple of times we almost told her. Well the morning we were going to leave, we get a text from Tia saying she had changed her trip and was flying home with Lesley! Well it put us all in a tizz.

We got to the airport, booked in and we said hello to Jessica’s partner Tian(?), a lovely girl and very friendly to two strange people wandering up to her. We got my wheelchair and we went through to the gates. Maureen had just about worn a hole in the carpet walking up and down. She gets nervous before any trip, but with everything else happening and looking forward to seeing Tia, she was in overdrive. We got on the plane and 2 ½ hours later popped out at Bali. The plane had steps to go down so I managed those and whilst everyone else waited for the bus, a car came out and picked Maureen and I up and drove us to the terminal. We got into my wheelchair and away we went, no checked in bags so straight through immigration and customs and out to the taxis. We got to the hotel soon after and caught up with Tia. She had decided she wanted to stay on with us and to cut a long story short, we got her flight organised – crisis averted.

Day 86

Day 86 Darwin

Well I must admit today was not the most exciting of days following yesterday. I took Trude in for a service and oil change. As per usual they found all sorts of things that should be done, but nothing urgent. It took them some time to do and when I got her back I went for a run down to Palmerston. I needed to go to the bank and whilst I was there I got a new Anderson plug for the caravan as the old one had come adrift on our way into Darwin and was worse for wear, actually it was non-existent as it had come unclipped and dragged along the road. Trude was also suffering from cataracts as her headlights were a bit sun affected, so I also bought a polishing kit for her. I came home in time for lunch. Maureen had spent the morning rearranging the cellar under the bed and doing some general spring cleaning ready for us to leave Darwin. After lunch I replaced the Anderson plug and then polished up Trude’s headlights and Maureen carried on cleaning. Later in the afternoon we went into town. We needed to find an internet café to print out some forms and then drove back out to home. Went to the café for dinner and then wandered across the carpark and into the pool for a night swim and watch the bats flying around. So as you can see, a pretty quiet day and no reason for a picture. Tomorrow will be more exciting. We start the day off by catching up with our niece up here Jessica Martyn. She has been busy working at the hospital so we intend to have a coffee/lunch with her.

Day 85

Day 85 Darwin

After our late night last night we started a little later this morning and 1 got up around 8. We had

Adelaide River War Cemetary

44 wing founded

breakfast and discussed what we would do and settled on going to Adelaide River and check out a few sights. We drove to Adelaide river and during this drive passed at least 5 Airstrips from the war. The highway goes right along side them. We went to the War Cemetery there. They have done an excellent job there and the

one of the grave markers

walking amongst the graves

place is immaculate. We walked around the graves and although there are not hundreds and hundreds, there is enough to give you some perspective of the sacrifice. There were a lot more there at the time of the war, but just after it ended there was a time where families could claim the bodies and have them shipped back to where they wanted them buried, those here are those that were not shifted, a very sad sight

Civilian Section

Trude doing the Adelaide River old crossing

but a great place to visit.

From there we went to the Adelaide River Pub where the buffalo from Crocodile Dundee is. This is the buffalo that Mick quietens down. His name is Charlie and he was a gentle old sole. He used to be in the yard next to the pub, but

Having a chat to Charlie

You want what?

he died so they stuffed him and mounted him on the bar! Good job too. We had lunch there and then moved on to Wangi Falls in Litchfield national Park. We had heard that the falls were easily accessible for me so we thought we would give it a go. Our first priority was for Maureen to get a coffee, she has a Cappaccino with soya milk and I can tell you, good ones are few and far between, but she did not order one here once she saw the sign at the coffee machine (see picture).

The falls are great and they are easily accessible to me and we had a great time splashing around. It

Wangi Falls

Me at Wangi Falls

turns out that a swimmer drowned there the day before. An Asian tourist with a tour group was there and it was not until the tour leader was rounding the group up that he was missed. Apparently hit his head and drowned, or so they think. The pool had only been reopened after it was closed following a croc sighting. Today it was perfect. we met acouple from Victoria and he is a baker who has 7 shops and his own bakery. Sorry no jobs there Sam, he is selling most of his shops and is installing an automated oven that

Lost City

lost City

replaces 3 people. From there we drove out to the Lost City. It is a natural rock formation that looks like a city. The drive was 4WD only and Trude just lapped it up. Maureen is also becoming quite the 4WD person. No death grips on all the hand holds. No thumping foot on the floor on her side like pressing the brake, I am quite impressed. The site was not suitable for me so I had a look from the side.

Back on the road we then went to the Termite Mounds. There are gazillions of termite mounds around

Termite Mounds

native palms

the place, but these are on a flat open plane and look very regimented. Very pretty sight. We left Litchfield and made our way back home for an early tea. Tomorrow we are not going anywhere exciting. Trude is having a service in the morning and Maureen wants some time time to clean up ready for our next move.

Day 84

Day 84 Darwin

Big day today. We started off with a walking tour of Darwin with a lovely lady Pearl. Pearl has been

The Beast is introduced to Pearl

200 Interesting Dawinians

in Darwin for some time and knows a lot of the history of Darwin with a focus on the social side rather than the war history. We started off at the Mantra Hotel and whilst Maureen went in to let them know we were there, I unleashed the Beast from Trude. The tour company had redesigned the tour with me in mind as they usually had people more physically fit and walkers. Pearl had done a great job and we

Spot where the bomb fell onn the Post Office

The Beast inn Parliment House

headed off down the park. Darwin was established in the 1870’s after a guy by the name of Goyder was given the job by South Australia who had been given control of the Northern Territory. Goyder was told to map out a number of towns in the north as they were keen to open the area up for trade and farming. Goyder planned out Darwin like Adelaide with regimented

Parliment House

Liberty Square - Rebellion Plaque

roads and grid layout. They also established towns around the area but they failed, mainly due to the lack of water. Darwin had a number of springs right on the coast and this was what made it successful.

Once the town was started in 1880, they sent in a lot of Chinese workers who dug out more wells and established secure water supplies. The town took off with a

Governor's House

Old church Facade

number of areas such as pearling, farming and trade facilities and a harbour. We walked down the foreshore area and she pointed out a number of features. Pearl has this fascination with where the stone came from for different buildings and I could sympathise with her as she struggles to find records of who built what so she can find these details out. One thing they did do for the Bicentenary was they put together little tiles of 200 interesting Darwinians. They have them set out in groups around the park.

Submarine in town

USS Piery Gun

There are some buets like Roger Jose (eccentric)!

We went for a tour of Parliament House and it has this huge hall on the ground floor and the airconditioning was perfect. The guards were excellent and they have a special door for disabled people and I was taken in there. The other two looked a bit shifty so they had to go through the scanners, but I was looking innocent as usual and I got let through. We had a look at a section of the original Post Office wall that was bombed on the first raid. They saved a section of the wall and rebuilt it. Just out side is a plaque commemorating the rebellion that occurred here in 1918. There were extreme shortages of grain so

Gun points to USS Piery just to stern of ship Little bouy marks it

the government of Australia decided to ration beer and shorten the opening hours of the pubs. Well they went ballistic up here and rebelled and stormed the Governor’s house!

From Parliament House we moved into the town where we visited a number of old buildings such as the Star Theatre, the Palmerston Town Hall and an old church. Pearl did an excellent job and we ended at her hairdresser as Maureen had commented on her hair and wanted hers cut and did she recommend her. So she dropped in and made an appointment for 12. As it was after 11 we said our goodbyes to Pearl and decided to have an early lunch and then I would see if I coud get a massage whilst Maureen had her locks looked at. We had our lunch at the Victoria Hotel, one of the old buildings pointed out to us, and then Maureen went to the hair dresser. I went over the mall and booked in for a massage but I had to wait 45 minutes. So back on the Beast and I went back to the foreshore.both tours had mentioned the gun from the USS Piery so I decided to see if I could find it. I went along the foreshore which has a wonderful park and found the the gun. As I mentioned earlier, the USS Piery went down during the first raid with this very gun firing until it went under. It had been retrieved and now points towards where the wreck lies about 400m offshore. I took some pictures and noticed that there was a submarine anchored in the harbour. It was too far out to get a good look at it. I then wandered back for my massage and to find Maureen so we could go home.

We came back from town and it was stinking hot, so off to the pool and we went for a dip. We went back to Girt and got dressed for dinner. Our old friends Tony and Julie Snelling had invited us to their place. Tony is the CEO of Surf Life Saving NT and Julie looks after training and also manages the Kiosk at the wave agoon. Their son Trevor is a manger of the lifeguards there as well.dinner was fantastic and it was good to catch up with them. They had just returned from a holiday in Hong Kong, in fact the flew in at 5:30 that morning and Tony was flying out for Sydney the following day. Between the three of them, Tony, Julie and Trevor, they did an excellent job. we chatted for hours and it was soon after midnight before we left. A wonderful night with great friends. They have this apartment that overlooks the harbour and there was a lovely lightning show put on just for us I am sure.