OFF TO AN OLD AUSSIE FAVOURITE

This is a 2 week mix of family and doing our
own thing, the perfect mix.

Menjangan National Park was our highlight of the trip, we
hired a bird guide – worth his weight in gold.

The accommodation at Menjangan Resort, right in the National Park was a
great start with some deer and amazing birds right out from our deck.

The resort has a tower with amazing views and the restaurant
has many decked levels overlooking the National Park.  The beaches around the resort have such clear
water, lots of fish and deer wandering around the beaches.

The bird tour was amazing with the rare Bali Starling ,
colourful Minnavets, flowerpeckers, barbets, kingfishers and much more. 

It was a very long day, but a great one and I
would thoroughly recommend it – the guide is a National Park ranger so has lots
of knowledge.

We saw plenty of the rest of the Island with a trip to the
Botanical Gardens, UluWatu, Jimbaran Bay & Hidden Canyon amoung others and
also stays at Ubud, Seminyak and Pedang Bai.

Our favourite restaurant – for scenery and good food was at
Crystal Cascades, stunning location and well worth a visit – not the cheapest
but so peaceful and pretty. You can also amuse yourself by watching the white
water rafters coming down the river.

Hidden Canyon was my own journey – we got to the ticket hut
and were informed the current was strong, it was hard and water would be up to
your waist – in fact it was over my head in places and I had to try and swim
against a strong current – unsuccessfully, my guide had to pull me out.  I think that this journey was so incredible
due to the large volume of water at the time.
It is not always that tough.  In
places it would have been great to have
longer legs.  There are 3 canyons
and a way to opt out after each one – not me.

It was interesting to see many young people giving up and finding it all
too hard.  The guide costs $5 – not a lot
but many people who chose not to pay.  In
fact the group of 20 somethings in front did not want to pay and ended up using
my guide as they could not manage alone…..

Ubud was great for birds as we stayed out of the main town –
can not believe how huge it is now,  I
was last here in 1983 and it was tiny.
Our accommodation was Graha moding, a lovely bungalow with fantastic
views.

We chose to do a walking bird tour in Ubud (lunch included)
with a lovely lady who has combined her love of birds and her restaurant to
make a very successful business, keeping the tours cheap enough for
backpackers.  She is great at finding not
only birds but other wildlife and we were luck to see an Indochinese rat snake,
many butterflies and dragonflies.  Our
favourite bird spotted in Ubud was the Javan Kingfisher which brings people
from all over the world. Again our pictures are not the best, everytime we saw
it was at distance and we also still forget to check settings often leading to
too low a shutter speed and a blurry photo.

A walk to Munduk waterfall was good – steep but very
pleasant.

Our last week was spent on Gili Trewangan with a day trip to
Gili Air.  Our daughter was staying the
busy side of the island in a nice hotel, but we chose a cuter cheap place on
the quiet side.  Le Pirate was in to our
mind a great location, opposite a beach surrounded by not a lot. 

The rooms were small but it had 2 pools and a nice
restaurant.  Obviously everyone else on
the island liked the look of it as on their walks around everyone stopped to
take photos.  It became a little annoying
for us as we had a front bungalow and when we were in the hammock on the deck,
people would walk right  up to us and
pose for photos (with us in the background).
I got so fed up at one point I stuck my leg and foot out over a ladies
head to ruin the shot.  A bit rude I
know, but if they want pictures they should pay to stay or wait till no one is
there.

On one of our walks around the island we were lucky to see a
Pink Necked Green Pigeon that we had been hoping to see. 

The day trip to Gili Air for snorkelling was great and we
spotted turtles, fish and coral. 

There is also some interesting underwater sculpture.

There is not lots of coral, like many places there are too
many people and the coral is dying.  The
small patches that are there are good.
Gili Air was very different to Gili Trewangan, much more laid back and
garden like accommodation almost 70s like.
We loved it and would definitely stay there another time.  Much cheaper too.