Melbourne madness

17

Apr

April 17, 2013 by Karen

We managed to squeeze a lot into our seven weeks back in Melbourne!

I played one game of touch rugby and won a grand final!.

Nick finally had his hair cut! He went to Fluff, a salon in Smith Street that specialises in curly hair!

Before

After

We looked after our cats in our Brunswick place over the Easter weekend. It was great to be with them again. Cosmo, our ginger man was particularly smoochy and followed our every move. Pudda was her usual low maintainence self.

I re-entered the teaching world and managed to get work as a casual relief teacher at a large catholic school down the road from where we were living. It certainly was not dull. I turned into my mother as the children called me Mrs Watson, it is always best to be married when teaching at a catholic school! I was the PE teacher and the music teacher on more than one occasion. Anyone who has ever heard me try to sing will realise how funny this actually is! The children were mostly gorgeous but there were a few interesting cases. A child in a year 3/4 class thought it would be fun to start a game of tiggy in the classroom about five minutes after my arrival into his classroom. I think my response was…”You are kiding me, surely??” A prep teacher got me to count for 45 very long minutes with 5 year olds. A boy managed to get his leg stuck in some playground bars while I was on duty and there were many bloodied knees to attend to and fights to break up. It was hard work being a CRT but the best part was I got to go home at 4pm with a big smile on my face and without a care in the world. I don't think I ever want to teach full time again!

There were many catch ups with family and friends.

Nick started writing his book and sold a lot of things on Ebay. He earned more money than I did!

Thanks to everybody who made our seven weeks back in Melbourne so great! See you again soon!!!!!

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Full circle

1

Mar

March 1, 2013 by Karen

“Travel is more than the seeing of sights; it is a change that goes on, deep and permanent in the ideas of living.”

Miriam Beard b. 1901

Our year long trip came to an end when we landed back in Melbourne on the 6th of February 2013, after 366 days, 3 continents, 17 countries, 20 languages, 13 currencies and 3 seasons (sorry spring!).

In the very back of our qantas flight from Sydney!

Lynne and Les where there at the airport to greet us!

What a difference a year makes! We arrived lighter, more relaxed and extremely happy!

Thank you to everyone who has followed our travels. It doesn't end here. The latest plan is to buy ourselves a little campervan and head up the East coast! Stay tuned for more adventures…

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Perfect Phuket

28

Feb

February 28, 2013 by Karen

“Just relax. Everyone around you is working too hard.”

― Bauvard, Some Inspiration for the Overenthusiastic

We wanted to continue the relaxing theme to our year away before heading back to Australia and stayed in Phuket for 10 nights with my best friend Celi and her partner Huw (who is also our friend).

The luxury of their villa was hard to handle!

It was a ten minutes walk to the beach and we found ourselves there every morning having a swim.

Our morning pit stop for coffee, sometimes before the swim, sometimes after.

It was back to the beach in the afternoon with the dogs for another dip and to watch the sunset.

Meet the fluffy girls!

CD short for Crazy Dog

Nia

Tanz with her sisters

Our weekends were spent with Celi, Huw and the girls at the beach.

“It is such a tough life!” Celi, Huw and their fluffy ones. Just a usual Sunday morning.

Testing the local cocktails at the market. It would have been rude not to!

Healthy ice-cream anyone? Just berries and milk in this one!

Pig snouts anyone?

I loved this young girl and her bow!

We visited the oldest street in Phuket town, a real beauty often missed by tourists!

Nick with Chopper, a puppy that was found by the side of the road. About to become dog number four?

These two signs made us laugh.

We certainly left Phuket relaxed and tanned after our 'dream' ten days there. A big thanks to Celi and Huw for having us and showing us an amazing time.

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Are you still on this island?

3

Feb

February 3, 2013 by Karen

‘The Gili Islands, NO cars ! NO motorbikes ! NO worries. . . . !

Arcing away from the northwest corner of Lombok, are three idyllic atolls, where the sand is still powdery white, the water a clear sparkling turquoise, and the sunsets over Bali’s volcano Mt. Agung in the west simply spectacular.’

http://www.gili-paradise.com/

We loved the feel of Gili Air the moment we arrived. It was so nice to be somewhere peaceful without touts and car horns. The views were pretty spectacular as well.

With no motorised transport, horse drawn carriages called cidomos were very popular with locals and unsuspecting tourists!

We spent our first four nights at Biba Beach Resort run by two cat loving Italians.

“Would you like to check in?”

“No, I’ll just sleep here thanks!”

The weather got a little wild and we had to sit right at the back of their amazing wood fire pizza restaurant.

A friend joined us for breakfast!

We found a great spot for a cappuccino. They were a lot cheaper than the cat-poo-cinno (local slang for a coffee made from Kopi Lewak beans) Nick tried in Ubud.

The view from Scallywags, our coffee spot.

One of the days we were there the Mandi Sapar bathing ritual was performed where the whole village came down to the beach to cast away bad luck from the island. This is not an Islamic festival or even Sewak but was bought to the island by Sulawesi’s Bugis people, believed to be the first inhabitants on the islands.

We hired bikes and enjoyed exploring the island.

Do you want to buy a bracelet?

We started our 8 day True Nature Yoga and Meditation Retreat at H2O Yoga. We loved every minute of it and would recommend the centre to all.

The gorgeous yoga circle

Roof of the yoga circle

The handstand wall!

The shared bungalows

Bindu in the Zen centre

A nice place to relax in the garden

Surya the resident cat/ Princess

She enjoyed sneaking up on you in meditation and would often plop herself on your lap.

We ate our breakfast and dinner in silence each day and were encouraged to eat mindfully, tasting and being grateful for every mouthful. This was our evening table setting.

Each day we snorkelled in a different location on the island and parked ourselves at a different cafe.

Each afternoon we would head down to the beach for a sunset activity and meditation.

Doing some Chi Kung moves in the water while we waited for the others to arrive.

Over the eight days we saw some spectacular sunsets!

The retreat ended and we had to say goodbye to most of the group.

With Sigrid and the Russian honeymooners, Mischa and Dennis.

With Karen and Ron

With Sigrid, our lovely new friend from Belgium also taking a year out to travel with her boyfriend.

The two beautiful, fashionistas of the retreat, Emma and Nathalie!

We stayed for one more night and returned to Biba beach resort for dinner on the last night.

“Are you still on this island?” was the first thing the waiter said to me as I arrived!

We dragged ourselves off the island the following day and went over to Kuta Lombok. It was beautiful but we missed Gili Air and just wated to do more yoga. After two nights at Seger Reef Homestay we booked our trip back to Gili Air.

Kuta, Lombok