All my travels so far have gone smoothly without any problems, so I thought I’d spice things up a bit and lose my bank card.

I think I left it in an ATM while in Ubud.  I’ve never lost anything like that before and had to do it in Indonesia where I didn’t have much access to the internet or phone.  I did manage to call Barclays by using my Australian phone and got them to cancel the card (inadvertently due to failing their security questions) and send out a new one.

I would have been stuck in Bali without any money but luckily the lovely ‘Bank of Mum and Dad’ have stepped in to lend me some cash while I get it sorted. Thanks Mum and Dad!  Also a big shout out to 'Helen Bank', without which I would have been left with 100,000 Rp (£6) and probably living off road kill and sleeping with the stray dogs.

 

We arrived in Sanur from Ubud via bus and had booked into a hotel for two days.  I haven’t got much to say about Sanur, it is a quiet seaside resort with a few bars, restaurants, markets stalls and the like.  The first day we took a stroll along the beach and got something to eat and had a few drinks in an Irish bar, they had some live music from ‘The Three Leprechauns’, that being three Balinese men who were no more leprechaun than I am a potato.

The second day was spent at McDonalds and sorting travel arrangements.

We decided to go to Lembongan Island from Sanur.  Lembongan is a small island not far from Bali, we got a boat across which took about one hour.  We booked into a hotel there for three nights, it was a little more pricey than the other hotels so far (£30 night) but it was really good; a little cabin being a stone’s throw from the beach, infinity pool and breakfast included.

Lembongan was really nice, a little slice of paradise... we didn’t pack too much in and spent a lot of time sunning ourselves or chilling by the pool but we did walk to Mushroom Beach one day which was a small bay with some bars and restaurants all around.  We found a nice restaurant with an outdoor cinema which is where we spent two of the three nights, one of the films on show was Wolf Creek (the film about the killer in the Australian outback), which we thought would set us up nicely for our coming road trip around Darwin.

After Lembongan we headed back to Kuta.  We only spent one night in Kuta as we were getting a flight to Darwin the next day.  We just relaxed in Kuta and treated ourselves to a bit of western food, this being McDonalds and a trip to Pizza Express.  We felt we needed some western food as the dreaded ‘Bali belly’ had affected us both and our packs of Imodium came in very handy.

We arrived in Darwin safe and sound despite some hairy moments, like our plane disappearing completely off the boards at one point and no one knowing where it had gone.  We booked into a hostel for one night in Darwin then we are picking up a campervan and heading out to Kakadu National Park for some adventures.  We will arrive back in Darwin after 5 days and then get a flight to Adelaide.