After our decision to split the group for a couple of days it was left to Dunc and I to experience a beautiful weekend of sport. Splitting the group was similar to when the Fellowship of the Ring had to go their separate ways. The only difference is that Lisa is a couple of inches shorter than the dwarf, my hair is curlier than Frodo, Em’s has more wisdom than Gandalf and Dunc looks like an Ork. It took an hour up the motorway to drop off the girls at Brisbane station, we said our goodbyes and then back to Southport. It was sad to see the back of the troublesome twosome but Dunc got over it enough to drive us back. Phew!!! We had a hectic plan for the next four days. As we arrived ... read more

So we left the campsite the next morning after realising that the motor home rental company had no intention of fixing our lights on a Sunday, and it was Mother’s Day for them, and it’s any excuse to hit the beers early. So we accepted that we would stop at a repair shop in Ballina the next morning. In the meantime, the sun was shining and we could still get light if we had hook up, so we booked into Broken Head campsite. It was actually a beautiful little place, on the edge of the nature reserve, and also right on Tallow Beach. It was also quite quiet so it was really relaxing. We did the decent thing and lazed on the beach for the afternoon….and as Stu had ‘dinged’ his board and had repaired it, ... read more

Well that’s not what they thought at the Emirates check in desk when they saw him….. Anyway Lisa and Duncan had made it all the way over to Brisbane, after 3 flights and 24 hours of travelling and we were over 1 hour late picking them up! We managed to get stuck in traffic not unlike the M25 on a Monday morning, as we headed the 100km up the M1 to Brisbane airport in the early hours. Despite Duncan’s 2 day hangover they were in good spirits and it was great to see them. The sun was shining and they were officially ‘down under’. We stopped briefly to meet Dunc’s mate Shaun at work, before heading back to meet Kerry (Shaun’s better half) at home in Southport, and then we went out for a big Ozzie ... read more

It was a 5 hour flight to Sydney on Jetstar (Qantas’s budget airline). It was an easy flight as we had seats either side of us free, but you know how it is with night flights, decent sleep rarely comes, after dinner and a film there was little time left anyway. But it was definitely one of the flights where you wake up and you have dribbled on your own shoulder. Besides that, we had a rather late one the night before, thanks to Bali Hai and a Balinese Elvis impersonator. So we arrived in Sydney around 7am feeling tired. We waited another 1 hour for our oversized luggage to come through (surfboards), and then we joined the chaotic queue to pass through customs and immigration. This wasn’t really a queue, more a disorganised pushing-in frenzy ... read more

So once again we were back in Kuta and back in room 4 of the Bendesa. It was just a quick stop over on our way to Lombok. Lombok is an island that is in fact larger than Bali lying to its east, but is still relatively untouched by tourism. It is strictly Muslim, rather than Hindu, as in Bali. We had heard it was very beautiful and definitely worth the effort of getting there, but also to be on careful as it could be a bit more dangerous for the naïve Westerner. We could get there the expensive way by flying, or go on the public slow ferry. The ferry it was. As a tourist, we had to buy the tickets through a company called Perama, who pretty much have the monopoly on transporting tourists ... read more