March 2003 A short stay in Ubud, Bali

Once we started to get the boat together and we were confident we could cast off without too much hassle, we had a trip inland to see some sights. We organised a driver to take us up to Ubud and we stayed in a cheap room for four nights before returning. While still a very tourist dominated town, Ubud is much less chaotic than Kuta or Denpassar, and worth the time to enjoy the place.

On the way up we stopped at Goa Gajah, the Elephant Cave temple, as most people do. The temples are fascinating as they are not just relics from a bygone time, but still worshipped in everyday life.

All photos taken in Ubud

On the first night we had dinner at a little restaurant, Ayu's Kitchen, in Monkey Forest Road, and then Courtney & Liz went to see a Legong dance at Ubud Palace. Anna & I were too tired and went home to bed.

Our days at Ubud consisted of school work in the mornings, and then an outing in the afternoon on most days. One trip took us to the Neka Art Gallery and we saw the inspiration of all the artwork in the shops around town. Other days we wandered the markets looking at the huge array of things to buy.

The last day in Ubud saw Liz off to the Casa Luna Cooking School. She came back very happy with the day and a cookbook, apron and a mission to produce Balinese food. The girls went to a Batik class with a local artist I Nyoman Suradnya, who is a lovely patient man who guided the girls through the process of creating their own piece of Batik. 

In the afternoon we went to Pondok Pendak Library & Resources Centre and watched local kids practicing their dances and spoke to an American volunteer helping to run the library. We made a gift of excess books the girls had outgrown.Our last night in Ubud saw us off to see wayang kulit, a shadow puppet play. While sometimes the language was a barrier, it was still very much a 'good vs evil' show and the shadow effect on the elaborately carved puppets was wonderful.

the CD Version of the web site has a movie of Balinese kids at dance lessons and the Shadow puppets 

On the trip back, we detoured to visit Mount Batur, with it's spectacular views. On the way we stopped at the small town of Tampaksiring to see Gunung Kawi, a temple with large carvings in the mountainside and Tirta Empul, a water temple. There we went for a lovely walk through the rice fields to see a not so spectacular waterfall. But the walk was worth it.

We had lunch in a very touristy restaurant on the greater crater rim and enjoyed the spectacular view. After lunch we headed down the mountains and stopped at some beautiful rice terraces around the village Garuda, which is named after and produces statutes of the mythical bird-creature, the symbol of modern Indonesia. This again was well visited and we were swamped a bit with hawkers as we got out of the car. 

We got back to the boat and then appreciated the cooler mountain climate. Back to schoolwork and jobs.

All photos taken in Ubud

Feburary 2003 - Return to Bali

I (Colin) returned to the boat a few days before the rest of the family. This was a airline ticketing issue but allowed me to survey the effects of leaving the boat for five months before the family arrived. I found my heart was racing as I approached the marina, and was very relieved to see the boat sitting pretty well as I left it. I had arranged for someone to clean it before I arrived and was very thankful I had done. On the whole the boat looked OK but I could see that before the clean it was a lot worse, with lots of mildew evident in the boat.

So then the process starting up the 'systems' and seeing where we stood. After a week we had 3 out of 4 batteries replaced, starter motor stripped down and freed up, a leaking water system sealed, a frozen gas solendoid freed up and after a swim to clean the earth plate a working radio-email system.

Just a dead invertor to resolve and most things are working! Here she sits with covers out to keep the occupants cool. Which was the big shock - the heat was a real struggle to work in.t


The girls arrived safely and through the heat we slowly started to have the boat like it was before - not completely organised but livable.

We had a day out in a rental car which was a memorable but not to be repeated experience. Driving in Indonesia takes too much concentration and the roads aren't that well sign posted. We found our way up the mountains and ended up in Ubud and had lunch and visited the monkey forest. After an unsuccesful attempt to head to Tanah Lot we headed out to Ulu Watu. Still it was a good day but for the extra $20 we'll get a driver next time.


Over the next week jobs on the boat got done, schoolwork was performed and we thought about a trip up to Ubud.

January 2003 - NZ to Newcastle to Bali

The previous page saw us settled into a routine in Tauranga on the North Island of New Zealand. Rosemary, Elizabeth's Mum, has made an excellent recovery and we left them both in good spirits.



Two birthdays were celebrated whilst in NZ. Anna had her eighth while Col was still in Bali. Harry Potter Lego was the big winner on that day. Courtney had the advantage of a term at school before her 11th birthday so she had lots of friends, as well as the cousins about. Christmas was a nice day with Virginia and Robert coming up from Blenhiem on the South Island for the holidays. Breakfast in a park and lunch at Gil & Rosemary's on a very sunny NZ day. After lunch we were entertained by the children for a while, and then of course it was back to the toys.



Just before Christmas Liz and I had a rare weekend away from the kids and went to Auckland to watch the Americas Cup racing. Light winds canceled the racing but we saw lots of the boats sailing around us and generally enjoyed a weekend out on the town. During the weekend we met two couples from boat we knew in Lake Macquarie, Colin & Vicki off the yacht My Girl and Barry & Lyn off Blue Chip. Also we ran into Kathy from the Gizo (Solomon Islands) Dive shop. Kathy's parents had a horse stud just outside of Auckland so we made a date to go and visit and, later on, had a wonderful day catching up with her and Dirk.

After Christmas we went on a bit of holiday to finish off our stay in NZ. This was firstly a short trip east along the coast to Ohope to see some friends Sue and Sean and their kids. As luck would have it we camped in the same park as Liz's brother Chris and family. From there we did a tour of the Coromandel peninsula - a truly stunning part of the world. We undertook this trip in the little Ford laser we bought for $500. We jammed ourselves in with camping gear and had our first ever camping trip with the girls.

The tent and camping gear was lent to us by Colin & Robyn Denize, who I did some work for. They kindly host our web site now.

After the huge job of packing up the accumulations of four months we set off to Auckland for the plane to Sydney. We picked up a rental car and a combination of a late night trip and the new roads out the airport put us on the familiar freeway to Newcastle in no time.



We stayed with my parents at Caves Beach and it was great to see them and all the rest of our family and friends. We had a month there with a lot of the time taken up by tidying up our house we rent out. But we managed to catch up with most of our friends and had some excellent days and evenings.

From here on the photos come from our new digital camera! This means photos will be taken with no regard for developing costs and web pages will be more timely.





On one very special day we caught up with our Solomon Islands cruising friends, Dennis & Barbara Kay, on their new catamaran Araboot. They had bought a Hitchhiker 40 catamaran and hoped to sell their old boat Toobara soon. It was great to go for a sail on Lake Macquarie. On another day we went to ABC radio in Newcastle and recorded an nterview about our travels which was broadcast in NSW on a Sunday morning - all very embarrasing but fun.

All in all our trip back home to NZ & Australia was good. We all know that we have a good life to return to after we finish the 'current project'.