EE & S Adventures

 Eric's view... Waterbom might be Bali's number one tourist attraction.  It's beautiful, clean, safe and full of high tech slides which can be a surprise to some tourists who might have formed a different view based on poor stereotypes and subconscious bias.  Frankly it leaves Australian water parks for dead in pretty much every way.   We were lucky to visit on what seemed to be a fairly quiet day.  The longest wait we had for any slide was about 15 minutes, but mostly wait times were between zero and 5 minutes which meant plenty of exercise climbing stairs between sliding. They have an excellent cashless system for buying food and other things in the park.  You just pre load a wristband with credit and off you go.  Unused credit gets refunded at the end of the day.  Oh and the food is a fair bit better than western amusement parks.  Way cheaper for starters, more variety and the claim that they have Bali's best chips might even be accur...

Time to revive the blog with our Indonesian holiday stories and snaps.  We're spending 5 weeks in Bali and Lombok over December and January. First stop Seminyak where we have a nice Villa with our own pool.   Labor is very cheap here. Our room comes with breakfast. Each morning 3 people arrive to cook (within our villa) set the table and serve us. Today 5 came to clean the room! Needless to say, it is all done very quickly. Some shops employ someone to stop the traffic so people can back out or drive into the tiny car parking spots. It is a bit like having people fill your car with petrol like they did in Australia in the 80s and in South America in 2019. Walking around the streets we got quickly back into the swing of saying no to the taxi drivers, touts and various entrepreneurs trying to sell something or other.  However, the people seem to not be pushy, they leave off immediately when you say no thank you and just keep walking.  Overall, the Balinese people ...

For the next six weeks, Eric is on a Jawun secondment.  He's working on Ngarrindjeri Country in Murray Bridge at Moorundi Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Service . Week 1, and after an easy introduction to the Lower River Murray and Far West Coast secondees at Glenelg, we headed off on induction.  Our base for the next two nights was Camp Coorong.  Camp Coorong was established as a place to learn about Ngarrindjeri life, history and culture.  We started to understand the richness of life and the region, stretching back many thousands of years.  Sadly the camp is closed to the general public but there's a strong desire to get it open and running again as an attraction and centre of culture and learning. Sunrise at Camp Coorong We had the privilege of learning to weave from Aunty Ellen, whose artwork is exhibited nationally and internationally.  It was a bit like learning to paint from Picasso, with Aunty Ellen demonstrating endless patience that ...

For some reason we did not quite trust the weather predictions for snow overnight. How wrong we were - we woke to a winter wonderland! More snow was predicted during the day. Some 14 years ago, Elise and Eric did the Shotover canyon jet boat - an exhilarating, thrilling ride. Probably the most famous jetboat ride in the Queenstown region, it follows the Shotover canyon, just outside of Queenstown. It is still the most popular jetboat ride in the area and Eric and Samuel were excited to do it, (Elise not so much).  Eric and Samuel were on the first ride of the morning, and it was fresh and cool. They donned the required life jackets and set off. The ride certainly met expectations, and both came off with huge smiles, pulsing with the adrenalin. The rest of the day comprised the journey to Dunedin. Unfortunately, as predicted, the weather set in. We swapped drivers regularly, but Elise managed to get the worst of it, driving through swirling snow and sleet on a slushy, twisty road. N...

If yesterday was full of activity, today was very much a rest day.  After getting up late with no real plans, we made a late decision to take a short drive to visit Arrowtown.   We stopped at Amisfield for a very nice wine tasting, then drove on to Arrowtown where we joined a lot of other Queenstown day trippers.  It was tough finding a carpark.  We brought pies, checked out a few shops that didn't impress us much and drove home again. And that was about it for the day.  

 Our first full day in Queenstown was a busy one.  We were keen to take advantage of the good weather to cram plenty of activity in.  While Elise slept in, Samuel and Eric headed down to the lakefront for the first Orange Jetboat ride of the day across the lake and down the Kawarau River.  It was a great morning on the water, though quite a cold one, especially when the driver spun the boat and gave us a shower.  After a cold Jetboat ride, a hot pie from Ferg Bakery was just the ticket. After our early lunch we headed out of town towards Glenorchy.  The views of the snowcapped peaks over Lake Wakatipu were spectacular. Our destination for the afternoon was the Routeburn Track.  Fourteen years ago, Elise and Eric had walked half the track from the eastern track head to Harris Saddle and back in the middle of summer.  In spring, with the higher parts of the track still covered with snow and under avalanche threat, we settled for the 15km return hike...