Mulu

After a day in Miri organising things (well, Joanne our personal assistant organising things for us - us lazing on the couch) we were off on our trip to the UNESCO World Heritage listed Gunung Mulu National Park. After only a 30 minute flight from Miri, we were greeted by our guide "Larry" at the Mulu airport (strip of tarmac in the jungle). Whilst the rest of the plane load were whisked away in minivans to the fancy pants Royal Mulu Resort, we walked down the road a little and then disappeared into the jungle for our "airport transfer" - a long boat ride to the start of our hike to The Pinnacles.


Larry our guide was a local guy from Limbang who used to work at the National Park but now works for himself as a freelance guide, and was introduced to us through Joanne. The Park also provides guides for a fee, however at similar rates but half the English skills, personality and sincerity. The Park only requires that tourists pay their park fees and have some sort of guide and freelance guides charge a flat rate - so if you can make a small group it just gets cheaper!

Anyway, we met up with the rest of our group (1 Polish, 1 German and 2 English - again organised by Joanne) along the way and were dropped at the trekking point to Camp 5. An easy 8 km walk through the jungle in the rain (including regular "leech check" stops) and we were at Camp 5 before dark. The other great thing about freelance guides - they do all the cooking!

Camp 5 - an open air shelter where you are provided with a mattress and some floor space and a view of the Pinnacles view point (faint blob up in the clouds -directly above the shelter) - our challenge for the next day.



After a great meal consisting of black peppered chicken and local greenery and mushroom fried in garlic and chilli with rice it was straight to bed (about 9) to get as much sleep in as possible before our 5am wake up call (if you could block out the pouring rain on the tin roof, the rushing river and the generator blasting away).

Our 5am wake up call was eased by the smell of our breakfast wafting throught the shelter (pancakes, toast and coffee)- but after that it was straight out into the rain to get on with the climb. The Pinnacles walk itself it only 2.4km, but when you combine that with a elevation of 1.2km, rain, dim lighting, leeches, spiders and mozzies - it becomes a stack load tougher!! It's up hill all the way with the last 400m or so near vertical and climbed using a series of fixed ladders and ropes (and some handy rock climbing skills).



Soaking wet we reached the viewing point after about 3 hours - just in time for the clouds to clear, giving us a glarious view of our prize.



The Pinnacles themselves are are series of sharp limestone spikes and are an extremely rare type of formation. They were pretty cool- but I think most of the fun was getting there!

After an hour of snapping photos and digesting soggy sandwiches the clouds were back signalling it was time to get down.

After 4 hours of bone jarring decent (I suggested Larry install a flying fox) and lots of falls (none by me for once!) we were greeted by a swarm of sweat bees back at the shelter. I was the lucky one that got stung a few times and my shreek alerted the rest of the gang to run and jump in the river (fully clothed!) to rid ourselves of the "odour" the bees were after!!

A swim, another great meal cooked by Larry and a beer later, we were all tucked up again slathered in insect repellant.

The next morning we awoke feeling like we had been run over by a truck! However our bodies loosened a little as we retraced the 8 ks back to the drop off point and were taken by long boat to stay in the comfort of the hostel back at Park HQ. We spent a further two days in Mulu exploring the extensive cave system and taking the very tame boardwalks about the park, including a canopy walk which takes you about 20 metres up into the jungle canopy on a series of rope bridges.

Geckos were everywhere about the park, on the roof of most rooms and often in the shower!

Not sure if this was the edible kind, but wasn't game to find out!

Part of the Canopy walk - rope bridges that go from platform to platform built on massive trees.

The Garden of Eden at one end of the Deer Cave system.

Just some of the 2-3 million bats that emerge from Deer Cave each evening, spiralling in huge swarms to avoid being picked off by waiting birds of prey.

Today we flew back to Miri (after sadly declining an all expenses paid stay in Mulu Resort for one more night because our flight was over booked) ready for our flight to Bario tomorrow. (We couldn't really have stayed there anyway as there is much anguish over the building of the resort - the land was practically stolen from the local Berawan people and there are plans for the government to take even more land for a golf course, with little compensation and strong punishment for those who protest.)

Joanne has come through again and organised us another guide and we plan to walk from Bario to Ba Kelalan through the jungle, visiting longhouses and whatever communities and other things we come across along the way. We should be back in the civilisation of Brunei in about a week XX.

Miri

We're glad that the flight from Darwin to Singapore was cheap, beacuse it certainly wasn't pleasant. Tiger Air don't offer an awful lot in the way of leg room, a problem compouned by the fact that our seat would not recline. So there was no sleep to be had!

Once in Singapore we hopped on the train into the city center and had some delicious breakfast at a hawker market and then walked up to Mount Emily to try and book the place we wanted to stay on the way back through in a month. However it turns out there is a conference in town and we're out of luck.

A train and a bus later and we were at the Singapore immigration post on the causeway. Another bus across the causeway and we were at the Malaysian immigration post. Two more buses and we were at Senai Airport with a whole five minutes to spare before check-in closed. In the end it turned out that we needn't have worried, our flight was delayed by three hours (a problem for which Air Asia are apparently renowned), however we finally got a bit of sleep in on the airport floor!

After a very tiring 24 hours we finally made it here to Miri and Highlands Hostel. Joanne at the hostel has already helped us onto a group hiking to the Pinnacles leaving tomorrow afternoon (and done a load of washing for us!). So all we have to do now is relax, do some eating and drinking, and book a few more things before our flight to Mulu tomorrow.

A view from the hostel:

Darwin

Darwin was the seed that started this whole trip... Stu had told us what a good time he had at the footy last year so we decided to go. The original plan was to go to the game in Brisbane last weekend and then to Darwin for this weekend, but that fell through, along with a number of people who were going to join us.

After a 6am flight on Friday morning, we made it to Darwin around lunch time. When we got to the holstel we made the discovery that I had accidentally booked our accommodation for July instead of June, so we ended up in a dorm instead of a double, oops. We spent the afternoon wandering around the waterfront area before cooking ourselves a meal at the hostel, and hitting the town with Stu and his sister Kate for some drinks.

On Saturday morning we walked up to Parap to wander around the maket, and then up along Mindil beach to meet Stu where he was staying in Cullen Bay. We spent the afternoon staying hydrated at the bar before cramming onto a bus along with another dozen Footscray locals!

The atmosphere at the footy was great and it was nice being able to get beer in a can instead of the plastic cups you get at Telstra Dome.

Erin made friends with Barry Crocker and his keeper. Apparently they normally try and bar him from the ground, but as he has his own membership he's entitled to a seat.

It was a close game for the first three quarters, but the Doggies came through in the end. We farewelled Stu who had a middle of the night flight back to Melbourne and headed home to crash.

On Sunday morning we headed up to the Botanical Gardens for a wander around before hiking the whole way back across town to visit the seafood festival. Erin had some spiced salmon and I had some rather messy Sri Lankan style crab, very pleasant sitting on the breakwater with a band playing. For dinner we had pizza (with crocodile topping for me!) and then we went to the movies to kill some time before our rather absurd 3am flight.

Will's Speech

By popular demand, Will's best man speech:

Our Wedding

Here's a selection of photos from our wedding on the 24th of February...

A wider range of photos can be found here: flickr

Or some photos courtesy of Carol & Anni can be found on Mum's blog: http://gariwerd.blogspot.com

Villa Yabba Dabb A-duh

We decided to splash out and spend the last few nights in a bit of luxury. So we booked Villa Yabba Dabb A-duh, which despite appearances cost us less that a room in a 3-star motel in Australia would. Plus the Villa came with two cooks and gardener, not to mention a beautiful pavilion (each with a stone bathroom) and our own lookout tower!

Our lookout tower.

Our private pool and gardens.

The main bedroom pavilion in the middle, with the open air dining area to the right.

We only summoned the energy to leave our beautiful surrounds on a couple of occasions. Above, Stu makes friends with the locals whilst getting some of his photos put on CD.

The other trip out was to go jet-skiing. The consensus was that given I still had a broken ankle I should probably give it a miss. But Will, Stu and Beck both did their best to look extreme, both on and off the beach.

Yeh Sanih

From Ubud we decided to head for Bali's north coast and the town of Yeh Sanih. We picked up a charming driver from the main street in Ubud and we were off.

The first stop was Gunung Kawi, 10 rock cut shrines, 7 meters high cut into a cliff face at the bottom of a valley. To get to the bottom of the valley we had to got down around 500 stairs. On the way down I crutched past an elderly German gentleman and when he caught up at the bottom we stopped for a chat. When I passed him again on the way back up he (summon to mind your best German accent here, the Arnie) "you are putting me to shame."

On the way to lunch we stopped at a small private plantation, where the owner showed us around his various crops, which much to Erin's delight included a cocoa crop. We were then served some delicious home grown chocolate. For lunch we stopped at some dodgy restaurant by the side of the road. The one thing it had going for it was the view of Gunung Kawi out the window (above).

After stopping for directions a number of times and hanging a few u-turns we got to Yeh Sanih. The accommodation there is set inside beautifully manicured tropical gardens, with popular local hot springs at one end. When we arrived at the bungalows the lady manger came out to meet us. Almost the second we started talking the price dropped dramatically for the three water-front bungalows (view from the veranda pictured above). After a dip in the springs we headed for dinner, also cooked by the lady manager. The fish was so delicious we all (except for vegetarian Georgia) had seconds. Meanwhile, Georgia headed off for a massage, also from the lady manager. Along with her massage Georgia also managed to get quite a story:
The lady and her husband don't own the bungalows and gardens, they are just employed to run them. They only get paid when someone is staying, and since the bombing, nobody ventures that far off the beaten track (why would you when even Kuta is relatively deserted). So we were their first prospective guests for almost two weeks, hence the price of accomodation immediately dropped as low as they were authorised to offer it. To make some money on the side, she cooks fantastic meals for the small open air restaurant and they both offer massages. Her aim in life: to save enough money to buy a washing machine and open a laundromat.
Needless to say, we didn't need any extra encouragement to eat plenty of delicious fish, have plenty of massages and stay an extra couple of nights (despite the fact only one of the bungalows had a functioning toilet).

One day trip from Yeh Sanih took us to Pura Ulun Danu Bratan (pictured above) and the beautiful garden surrounding the lake.

From there it was onto Air Panas Banjar, hot springs in tropical gardens carved naga (mythical snake like creatures) spewing how water into the sulphur smelling pools. In respect of local customs our ladies dressed in modern swim wear, including Beck's very stylish pink number.

From the hot springs we headed into Lovina to find a bar where we could watch the Australian Open final (and Lleyton lose).

On the way back to the southern coat of the island we detoured via eastern region, principally to visit Tirta Gangga. This palace has huge ornamental ponds throughout the grounds and stone lily pads on which to frolic (pictured above).

Our final stop on the way round the island was Pura Besakih, Bali's most sacred temple. Once the people at the office were done trying to rip us off, we wandered up and down the many stairs to explore the temple, arriving back at our vehicle just in time to not be engulfed by the afternoons downpour. Instead we moved a short distance to a scenic restaurant nestled in the valley, where sat on the deck and watched the rain fall around us.