Day 384: The end... The beginning...

I got up early this morning to take some photos of the fishing boats on their way out to sea and then went back to join the others for some pancakes in the hotel restaurant. Then, while the girls played with the Turkish kids, I packed our bags for the last time. Just before midday, we checked out and left our bags at reception then headed down the road to what had by now become known as the crispy duck restaurant for some lunch.

After we had eaten, we returned to the resort to kill some time. The girls and I went for a swim but as we couldn't find Kate's costume, she had to stay dry. At about 4pm our car arrived and we drove back to Denpasar, spotting lots of macaques at various spots beside the road on the way – we won't be sad to not see them again for a while.

We arrived at the airport at about 6.30pm but as our flight wasn't until after midnight, we couldn't check in yet, so we made a rather dispiriting tour of the various food outlets before eventually choosing one, where we had a pretty dispiriting meal of meat pies and fried rice, in the process using up the last of our meagre cash reserves.

Finally, after we had sat around waiting for a bit longer while a 'security desk' was opened up, we were allowed to check our bags in and go through proper security. We still had a while to wait until our flight, however, which we spent amusing ourselves with the antics of our fellow tourists, an alarming number of whom kept arriving at the adjacent gate just before their flight – only to discover that the gate had been changed, sending them into a blind panic.

We also watched with some bemusement as some Air Asia staff started setting things up for a grand opening – it turns out that ours was the inaugural Denpasar to Sydney flight, an occasion that was marked with a ribbon-cutting ceremony, some photo ops and a free cupcake for the passengers. And then we filed onto the plane and flew to our final destination... 

Days 381-383: Lazy days

Not long after getting up on our first morning in Bali we began congratulating ourselves on our decision to avoid the Kuta area and come up to the quieter part of the island. The resort we chose was lovely – right on the beach, nice villa, nice pool, pretty good restaurant, friendly staff and just the sort of laidback vibe we needed for the final days of the journey. 

We spent most of our time just hanging around the resort – swimming in the pool, snorkelling off the beach and reading. The resort was very quiet – there were rarely more than two or three other families staying with us. One of those was a young family who arrived around the same time as us – the father English, the mother Turkish. They had two children around the girls' age and the four of them spent quite a bit of time together, playing in the pool and on the beach. 

For meals, we mostly just ate at the restaurant in the resort, which was set up on a terrace beside the pool. For lunch, however, we often walked up the road to a little collection of shops, restaurants and hotels, usually stopping off in the basic supermarket to buy an ice cream for dessert. 

The long, curved beach is a mixture of black volcanic sand and smooth pebbles/rocks (mostly the latter, which aren't a lot of fun to walk on). During the day, it acts as a parking lot for a motley collection of fishing boats - small outrigger-style catamarans. The fishermen mostly go out in the early morning, their colourful triangular sails lining the horizon. 

A local guy has set up a little stall beside the resort, from which he hires out snorkelling equipment in the morning. We all got a set each for exploring the pretty decent reef just off the beach. We went out most days, seeing a good range of colourful reef fish hanging around the coral.

The snorkelling gear guy also sets up tours to the larger local reefs, hooking tourists up with fishermen, who take them out for a few hours on their fishing boats. We did this one morning, putt-putting up the coast to the inventively named Coral Gardens. The water was gloriously clear, the coral and fish abundant. The girls eventually started to feel the cold and climbed back into the boat while Kate and I continued to explore the reef. The water was so clear that you could go into the deep and still see the bottom, and I spent some time just hovering, hoping to spot a shark or something equally large. Without success. On the way back, our guide unfurled the sail and we caught the breeze back to the resort, cutting through the slightly choppy water at a quite impressive speed.

Later, for my afternoon snorkel, inspired by my experience at the Coral Gardens, I went back out into the deep water off the house reef. Again, keeping my eyes peeled for sharks or other big fish, I noticed something long and thin swaying above the sand. On closer inspection, I discovered an enormous colony of sand eels, a small species in the shallower water and then a really large species (I'm guessing at least a metre in length) in the deeper water. After watching them for a while, I swam back to shore and went and got Kate, and we both swam out for a good look. Unfortunately, there was something with a bit of a sting in the water, so our eel-watching was quickly curtailed, but it was one of the most impressive sights I've ever encountered in the ocean.

Day 380: Bali bound

The alarm woke us at 6.30am and we headed out for breakfast at Taipan Food Corner. The pork buns weren't ready yet, but while we waited, Zoe tucked into some of her beloved wonton noodles. When my pork bun finally came it was still cold inside, so I sent it back for a bit more steaming. As we ate, Sarah had a bit of a moment when a small jumping spider did what jumping spiders do and jumped around on the table. Sarah has always had a love-hate relationship with spiders – sometimes she loves them and wants to hold every spider she sees, other times she decides she's petrified of them and shies away from even the smallest arachnids. She was apparently in a hate phase this morning, but I made her sit still and let the spider climb onto her hand and in no time she was back in love mode again.

Back in the room we finished packing and then went downstairs to meet 'our' taxi driver, Kelvin, at 9.30am. At the airport, we checked our bags in and then sat in a coffee shop until our plane was ready. A short flight later we were back in KL, where we collected our bags, checked them back in again and then went to Nando's for lunch. We went through security but our gate wasn't open yet, so we sat out in the open area. Eventually, we filed through and onto the plane for the two-to-three-hour flight to Denpasar. 

We were met at the arrivals exit by our driver (we had chosen to fork out for someone from the resort to come and pick us up), and went looking for something to eat as it was after 9pm and we hadn't had any dinner yet, but there weren't many options, so we got in the van and headed north. Eventually we came to a McDonald's and the driver pulled off the road so we could grab some takeaway, which we then ate in the van as we continued on. All the while I was slowly inching towards hypothermia as the driver insisted on having the air con on high, with the outlets pointed right at my chest. After a few hours, the roads began to get narrower and the stray dogs more abundant and it started to feel as though we might be reaching our destination.

We finally arrived at the resort just after midnight. Grabbing our bags, we trudged around to our little villa, the gentle lapping of waves on the nearby shore the only sound. Our driver let us into what proved to be an absolutely lovely little villa – high-ceilinged, with a big bed on the ground floor and some mattresses for the girls on a little upstairs mezzanine. There was a slightly odd vegetal smell in the room, which we traced to a rather sweet grass-and-flower-petal heart that had been carefully created on the floor at the foot of our bed.

Day 379: A slow Sunday

As usual, we went to McDonald's for breakfast and then headed back to the room to hang out. It was Sunday today, so when we re-emerged to look for somewhere to eat, there wasn't much open. We ended up in Hong Kong Noodle, a restaurant just around from Taipan Food Corner. It was quite a big place, and had a few customers in, but the food was decidedly average.

After lunch, we went shopping and bought some shoes and sandals for Kate and Sarah, and a new iPhone case for Kate, and got some more money out. We then stopped in at the unusually named Bing Coffee (a reference to Chandler Bing of Friends fame perhaps) where I downed a very nice iced coffee and sipped a flat white.

We then headed back to the room, where we finally chose our Bali accommodation (for tomorrow night – nothing like leaving things to the last minute). We've been agonising over this decision for days – do we go for a place close to Kuta Beach and the airport in the south, where there's a bit of a buzz and some surf at the beach, or do we head further north, where it's significantly more quiet and you can go snorkelling. We eventually opted for the latter, reasoning that it would be nice to spend the last few days of the journey just chilling out, and booked a room at Apa Kabar Villas in Amed, which is on a north-facing stretch of coast in eastern Bali.

We spent the rest of the afternoon chilling out and watching movies – and the heavy rain falling outside – before heading out in search of somewhere to have dinner. There still wasn't much open, so we returned to Top Spot, where we were now old hands at the whole ordering business.