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Published: January 18th 2024
Like an owl yearning for the moon… ~ Indonesian Proverb
HE SAID... Today we were travelling back to
Australia from Bali – via Melbourne and Hobart.
The check-out time of our villa at The Pavilions in Sanur was 12pm, and our flight was at 11:10pm. We didn’t relish the thought of 11 hours in Bali’s heat and humidity without access to a shower or air-conditioning, so we negotiated an extended check-out with the friendly reception staff, which allowed us to keep our villa until 8pm (for half the normal price). It was a lifesaver.
We organised our packs, settled in the villa’s comfortable open plan lounge and relaxed into the late afternoon and early evening. I freshened up in the outside shower for one final time at 7pm, dressed for the five-hour flight to Melbourne, then headed to reception to check-out and settle our bill.
We jumped into a taxi around 8pm and headed to Ngurah Rai International Airport, which is often simply referred to as Denpasar Airport. The roads were virtually empty, which surprised us. We’d heard the drive from Sanur to Denpasar could take an hour in heavy traffic, but we arrived at the airport within 30 minutes. This was in stark contrast to
our arrival in Sanur a few days earlier, where the traffic was heavy and our headway was slow.
We jumped out of the taxi and wandered into a relatively quiet and uncrowded terminal. It was a large space, but easy to navigate. We grabbed a few photographs of the terminal architecture, then headed through security to the check-in counters. The queue for our flight was long and slow, as there were only two counters open for the entire flight. We chatted to an Australian woman who had been surfing in Lombok. Her description of the island was appealing. We had almost booked a further nine days in Lombok at the end of this trip, but decided against it due to time restraints.
Once we’d checked-in, we breezed through customs and picked up a couple of vegetable samosas at Food Galleria. We’d had a late breakfast and snacked in our villa for lunch, so this served as a light (and very quick) pre-flight dinner. We grabbed a bottle of water, took a couple of cold & flu tablets and settled at our gate lounge. We’d barely sat down before we were called to board. It was a very easy
departure from Bali.
The flight wasn’t full (despite being a relatively small plane), so we were lucky enough to score a spare seat between us. Pure joy! I dozed for a few minutes during take-off, then grabbed a coffee and worked on my travel notes. It wasn’t long before the lights dimmed and the plane went into sleep mode. Ren was already asleep, and I wasn’t far behind.
We touched down at Melbourne Airport on time. We had a very tight turnaround. Our flight to Hobart was at 8:40am, and we had to clear customs and check-in our packs. We breezed through passport control, and we couldn’t believe our luck when our packs were some of the first to appear on the carousel. We handed in our customs declaration forms, confirming we’d been in rural areas of Indonesia in the past seven days, and that we had wood products as gifts in our packs. Fortunately we encountered a very friendly customs officer, who simply took a photo of our passports and let us through.
Now for the hard part – getting through the busy domestic terminal. Our boarding passes had been printed in Denpasar, so we queued
at Virgin’s international connections counter and checked our packs through without any drama. After grabbing a bottle of water from one of the terminal shops, we made our way to the gate lounge. We arrived with time to spare. Phew! We were exhausted, but happy to have negotiated passport control, luggage collection, customs and a domestic check-in within two hours.
We boarded our flight to Hobart and promptly fell asleep. The sky was blue and the sun was out, but we knew the temperature was going to be cool when we landed. The flight appeared to be relatively quick, but this may have been due to us sleeping most of the way.
Our trajectory across Tasmania revealed snow in highlands and choppy water in the larger lakes. This reinforced something we already knew – it was going to be cold. The landing was rough, and a young woman sitting next to Ren seemed to be traumatised by the bumps. She was clasping her hands in a white-knuckled prayer. She relaxed considerably when the plane slowed on the tarmac.
We disembarked, captured a few photographs of planes and structures, entered the terminal and made our way to the
baggage carousel. Our packs came out reasonably quickly, which allowed us to get to our waiting carpark shuttle in a reasonable time. Within a few minutes, we had arrived at the undercover parking facility. We loaded our packs in our car and headed straight into Hobart. We had two tasks to complete before 12pm. We had to purchase a few grocery items, and we had to pick up Mia (the cat) from the cattery. We achieved both. Just.
It was time to head home. The drive was comfortable, because we were not jet-lagged in any way. We were able to stay awake, which we struggled to do when we returned from Greece in 2022. Mia was very talkative on the way home. She had a lot to tell us, and she wouldn’t relent. Her constant chatter continued when we arrived home in the early afternoon. Loudly. We organised the utilities (water, gas and power). We carried our packs into our freezing house and threw a match into the wood heater. As the flames crept up the flue and the house slowly warmed, we kept ourselves busy until the hot water cylinder warmed sufficiently for a shower (which typically takes
about four hours).
We picked up Oliver (the kelpie) from the local kennels. He was very happy to see us, very happy to get home, and very happy to fall into his beanbag in front of the fire. He had befriended a few dogs during his stay at the kennels – a Corgi, a Staffordshire Terrier and a Labrador. But we know Ollie. He loves his life at home with us, where he sleeps quietly by himself as the world bustles on around him.
We were all home. Sadly, Jasper (our departed kelpie) wasn’t with us, but we fondly recalled her officious supervision of the unpacking process. Her frustration with Mia’s attention-seeking antics. Her annoyance with Oliver’s inability to stay awake longer than five minutes. Her pleading looks at Ren and I, imploring us to never, ever travel again.
SHE SAID... Here we were at the end of our Indonesian trip and on our way back home to
Australia. We’d had a relaxed day in our villa in Sanur, and I can only thank our lucky stars that The Pavilions could accommodate our request for a late check-out. At 8pm we settled our resort bill
and waited for our taxi to arrive. We only used Bluebird taxis on the entirety of our trip, and for added safety we asked the resort to call the taxi. We’ve learnt that drivers won’t mess with a regular client like a hotel or resort.
Those of you who followed our Greece travel blog will remember that I wasn’t very thrilled about our late-night flight out of Athens. It made for a very long door-to-door return trip home, and we were beyond exhausted. Well, we were yet again on a late-night flight back. Although in this case, we really had no choice. Both of the Australian airlines that we use – Qantas and Virgin – only offered late night flights back from Bali to Melbourne (that would get us back at a convenient time to pick up Mia from her cattery).
Also, this time it was only a medium haul flight home. Plus getting an 8pm check-out had made such a massive difference. We actually managed to get through the day in a lovely relaxed manner, and without feeling like walking zombies before we’d even boarded the flight (as we did in Greece).
Ngurah Rai Denpasar Airport
was nothing like I remembered from the late 1990s. I remember a small domestic airport sized building where even while in transit on international flights, we were allowed to go outside for some fresh air. The world has changed a lot since those days. The newer upgraded and expanded airport is definitely easier on the eye, but the check-in area we were queuing in could have done with a bit of air conditioning (at the very least)!
There were four Virgin Australia flights on the board (all flying to various destinations in Australia), but there seemed to be only two counters to process each flight! The queues were already long when we got there (just under three hours before our flight), and before long they were overflowing into the communal spaces of the airport. Without staff to manage the situation, the queues started crisscrossing each other and mayhem ensued. At one point people arriving into the check-in area couldn’t figure out which queue was which, and resorted to yelling out ‘Sydney?’ or ‘Melbourne?’ etc. and the relevant queue dutifully answered. 😊
I know we’ve disparaged the badly behaved Australian Bali Bogans in our Sanur blogs; but I have
to also fully acknowledge that in times of need, I have no doubt that Australians will without fail be amazingly helpful. There is also a certain open friendliness and approachability with Australians that is immediately apparent… which is lovely most of the time, but given the circumstances, it isn’t always a good thing. Luckily, we weren’t in the queue with the old bloke who wanted to loudly chat (with anyone who made eye contact) about how it’s going to hurt when he has to pay ‘Australian prices’ for beer and food when he gets home. I kept overhearing snippets of this same conversation whenever our Melbourne line snaked back towards the Gold Coast line in our zigzag queuing course.
Our ‘queue mate’ was a nice surfer chick, and we chatted to her for the entire hour or so we queued up. She was from Canberra and had just spent two weeks at a surf camp in Lombok. Her husband had previously taken a two-week holiday to go mountain bike riding with his mates, so it was his turn to stay home and look after the three kids while she went surfing. I love chatting to interesting people who are
very different to me; and I only seem to meet them through random encounters such as this. It gives me great insights into life outside my circles. Our chat made the time pass a lot quicker.
When we got to the front of the queue, we realised that a couple with four massive bags were holding up one of our two check-in counters. I think we’ve all seen passengers with bags flung open at the check-in counter, who think they can miraculously address their overweight luggage issue by moving items of clothing from one bag to another! Our check-in process at the counter next to theirs was extremely quick, and I hoped our expediency made the couple take note. But I doubt it. They were very deep in a world of pain – entirely of their own making.
We walked a circuit through a small food hall area and settled on vegetarian samosas as a light dinner before the flight. This was the first international flight either of us had ever caught that didn’t offer full service, so we thought we’d be better off buying a meal in the airport than on the plane. To be honest, we’d
been a bit blindsided by the lack of a full-service offering. We’d booked this Virgin Australia flight through a travel agent and hadn’t realised this fact until after the tickets were issued.
The flight was a small 737-800 plane with a 3-3 configuration like the ones we catch from Hobart to Melbourne. Even though it looked like a full flight, I was overjoyed that there was a spare seat next to me. We left right on time at 11:10pm, which was a relief because our transit time at Melbourne airport wasn’t huge. After a nice cup of tea, I curled up into my tried and test ‘flight foetal position’ and slept soundly for almost the entire five and half hour flight. I woke up well rested and happy, just in time to hear the captain ask the cabin crew to prepare for landing. 😊
We landed at Melbourne’s Tullamarine Airport at 6:45am. We marched through the airport, breezed through immigration and got our luggage very quickly. It helped that our flight was small, and that our luggage was tagged priority for domestic connection. We declared our shoes as having been in rural areas, but seeing as we’d taken
care to thoroughly clean them and we’d also walked through the disinfectant-filled mats on arrival, the customs guy let us straight through. There’s been an ongoing outbreak of bovine foot and mouth disease in Indonesia, so Australian border security was very rightly monitoring all flights from Indonesian.
We’d arrived at Terminal 2 (International) and our Virgin Australia domestic flight was out of Terminal 3. While Terminal 3 isn’t anywhere near as bad as the hideous Terminal 4 that the budget airlines fly out of, the new security screening area isn’t as convenient as it could be.
I don’t like tight transit flight times, but we hadn’t needed to rush as much as I thought we would. The bonus of our quick transit was that we didn’t have to wait long before we boarded our very very full flight to Hobart. The plane was the same size as the international one we’d just been on, but very weirdly the seats were actually much more comfortable!
Not surprisingly, we both fell asleep almost as soon as we sat down. I woke very surprised to find that it was 20 minutes after the scheduled take-off time and we were still
queued on the tarmac waiting for take-off. It mustn’t have phased me too much, because the next thing I knew we were swaying in a strong crosswind while attempting to land in Hobart… before bouncing hard on the tarmac a few seconds later. These kinds of landings are reasonably common in Hobart, but for the uninitiated it can be a terrifying experience. The girl sitting next to me looked white as a ghost, and her knuckles were white from clinging to the seat in front of her!
We prepared ourselves for a wintery blast across the tarmac as we walked to the terminal. Even though it was one of those beautiful sunny blue-skied winter days, it was very clear that we’d well and truly left the tropics! There’s something very welcoming about arriving at the small Hobart Airport. It’s a calm and easy-going operation, and we use it so often that we know every centimetre of it quite intimately.
We were entertained by our much-loved airport biosecurity beagle who was sniffing everyone’s bags on the luggage carousel. We always silently cheer for him when he ‘gets’ a bag by snuffling loudly and sitting next to it. This time
especially so, because the guy the suspicious bag belonged to had been very rude to Virgin staff at the international connection counter in Melbourne.
After we got our bags, we reported to a biosecurity officer as the ‘If you’ve just returned from Indonesia’ signs requested. Having vast agricultural farms, Tasmania has been especially worried about the outbreak of bovine foot and mouth disease in Indonesia. As in Melbourne, on hearing we’d cleaned our shoes and walked through the disinfectant-filled mats, the officer waved us through. However, her parting suggestion was that we wash all our clothes in hot water and a little disinfectant to be totally safe.
After a thank-you pat to Nathaniel for a safe overseas trip (Nathaniel is a bronze statue of a Tasmanian Devil we’ve adopted as our good luck charm), we walked to our waiting carpark shuttle. We were driven to our car in no time at all, and before long we’d done a quick fresh food grocery shop and were picking up Mia from her cattery. As always, she was ‘chunkier’ than when we’d dropped her off – she’s clearly embraced the concept of comfort eating when we are away. And also as
always, she was very vocal on the drive home. I’m sure she was describing all the ‘cats rights’ violations she’d suffered, and accusing us of being the worst humans ever. 😞
The door-to-door travel time from Asia is always more civilised than when we fly anywhere else in the world. We’d left our villa in Sanur Bali at 7:30pm local time and arrived home at 12:30pm – a 15-hour door-to-door trip.
We cleaned the house and began the long process of washing the contents of our packs before leaving to pick up Oliver at 3pm. Our beautiful kelpie boy was so super excited to see us. Cass the kennel owner breeds kelpies and knows them well. She had noticed that Oliver was carrying a bit more weight than normal (he was actually on notice from the Vet to lose to 4kg!), so she’d put him on a lean meat diet. He looked very good for it. The kennel assistant told us that Oliver made friends with a Labrador in the exercise yards. Before our other kelpie Jasper died, I guess the two of them would have hung out together…but now as an ‘only’ dog, he’s had to befriend
randoms at play time. 😊
So here we were back home safely from another adventure. As I write this, we are happily sitting in front of the fire in our beloved old schoolhouse, with Oliver and Mia snoring contentedly next to us. Our souvenirs and presents are laid out on the coffee table and I can’t wait to light the sandalwood incense and wear my gorgeous silk scarf.
Andrew has already finished unpacking and turned on his computer… but I’ve given myself until tomorrow. Those 636 emails waiting in my inbox can wait another day. As an aside, I’ve found that as I get older, my return home practices have changed a bit. I still ensure we get back into our house routines ASAP, but on the last few overseas trips, it has taken me an average of three days to fully unpack! I must be getting old. 😊
Thank you for following our travel writings about our time in Indonesia. As always, we will gather our thoughts on the trip and post an epilogue shortly! 😊
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Jasmin Baker
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The End
You are home sweet home. And a good trip been had!