Saturday, September 18, 2010
Update from Travis on Saturday, September 18th
As of Saturday, September 18, my dad and brother have left Bali and are headed to Cocos Keeling Islands in Indian Ocean. They are about a day or two out as we speak. Go to Google Earth to see how small these islands are. The Indian Ocean, upon investigation, strikes me as vast and relatively un-islanded. After these islands they have a 2400 mile (!) passage across to the Mauritius Islands. That is a lot of miles. My mom has just flown home and is back in Boothbay, aiming to meet up with them again when they the African continent at the end of the year ...
Bali, Indonesia
The last few weeks have been a flurry of making headway and keeping schedule with the itinerary and whirlwind of travel destinations in the Northern Territory of Australia and southern Bali. I find myself sad to be leaving Bali in my wake so soon. It has earned itself a place in the top five of my destinations in this journey so far. A few days spent there is merely a tantalizing taste of a land of wonderment, beauty, and intrigue. This place deserves weeks, not days. In my short time there, though, I managed to cross off a few more things on my bucket list (don't worry-planning on the long haul) and experience the kindness and tranquility of the Balinese people. I have to admit, before making landfall here -- I was a little concerned for our safety, after all the terrorist bombings of Kuta in 2002 and an adjacent city in 2004 (both near our marina) have left a tarnish upon the hearts of those who have yet to visit the island. What we experienced in our short time here was so far from the media blips I recall a few years back, I have come away with a very different impression about this island, far removed from the uglier politics of the other isles of Indonesia. These are a people who abhor the violence that was rained down on them and foreigners visiting their country and have re-built and continued to live as spiritual a life as I have ever been privileged to see and experience. A kinder and poorer people, I have never known.
It was nice to rendezvous with the BEG, as we finished made land-fall just before a torrential downpour soured the day for any sight-seeing. That was ok as the Skip, Oisin, and I were extremely tired from a harrowing last 12 hours of what was a relatively tranquil trip from Darwin (too tranquil-blazing hot, no wind, and noisy as we only sailed four hours over the course of a week). However, in the last 12 hours currents rose to 6 knots, our speed over ground dropped to 1.2 knots and waves rose to over 4 meters. In those kind of conditions, a boat is just about at the mercy of the sea and that's never good. So, as we topped off the tank and jerry cans with diesel and settled into our slip and new marina, we looked forward to what the original BEG had planned and assured would be a venture into tranquility.
Our driver, a nice Hindu man by the name of Kharti, picked us up the next morning and sped us away from the marina and the boat. Thank God! Freedom from the world of boats and yachties (no offense to either, of course). As moped after moped careened by us as break-neck speeds and we weaved through intersections with no traffic lights, I was wondering when we would get to that tranquility bit. We had a morning planned of temple viewing, lunch at a popular restaurant where we would feast on suckling pig, travel through the stone and wood-crafts districts, and then make our way up tho the highlands where yes, the "most delicious of all beverages" (see the movie "The Bucket List") would be consumed: Kopi Luwac coffee (coffee beans ingested by a civet cat, then collected by a dedicated and well, patient worker; and slow-roasted in an iron kettle over open fire). We watched the majority of that process and looked at a sleeping Luwac in a cage and sat there drinking our coffee at a table overlooking a misty, jungle valley. How did it taste? At a whopping three dollars a cup for Bali standards, I'd say it lives up to its reputation. Best coffee I've ever had. Not quite sure it's worth the 50 dollars or more a cup it will put you back in other time-zones.
As we made our way around the southern part of the island, stone temples adorned with ornately-carved good and bad spirits were aflock with worshipers and wedding ceremonies. Every village has three temples and every house is a temple in and of itself. As we were invited into our driver's open-aired house he explained that houses are ceremonial compounds where extended family live together and multiple offering sites are located magnetically as to their purpose. In the center, is a room that is used for to worship the souls of deceased family members. The smell of flower baskets lovingly placed at various places of worship in the compound mixed with burning incense. All of the afore-mentioned combined with that one cup of Kopi Luwac and I was starting to get into the tranquility mode.
Nightfall found ourselves checking into the former royal palace with pools of lotus flowers leading to the royal temple. I had never slept in a temple before nor bowed before a Queen. By the next morning, I could say neither anymore. We ate a healthy breakfast of fresh fruit and then decided to head to the monkey jungle, a place of reverence for the devilishly cunning macaque monkeys. Among the banyan trees and a thousand monkeys, I made the mistake of putting the bananas I purchased in the same pocket as my camera and ended up feeling the little hand of a crafty macaque yanking both out of my right pocket. For a few seconds we played tug-of-war, before he took off with all the bananas and I managed to hold onto my camera. Draw. The Skip learned quickly that once a macaque has stolen your bananas, those bananas are rightfully his or hers. Any attempt to recover purchased bananas will result in a gaping mouth displaying sharp teeth. Further attempt will more likely than not result in trip to hospital with one wondering why one fought with a monkey to retrieve bananas meant for a monkey. I stood there watching dad fight to get his bananas back from the monkey and wisely retreat upon the flash of teeth as people took pictures of the two. I wondered who was smarter.
We are headed to Cocos-Keeling and as always love and miss you all. Te amo, Merce.
"Brown-Eyed Girl" out...
It was nice to rendezvous with the BEG, as we finished made land-fall just before a torrential downpour soured the day for any sight-seeing. That was ok as the Skip, Oisin, and I were extremely tired from a harrowing last 12 hours of what was a relatively tranquil trip from Darwin (too tranquil-blazing hot, no wind, and noisy as we only sailed four hours over the course of a week). However, in the last 12 hours currents rose to 6 knots, our speed over ground dropped to 1.2 knots and waves rose to over 4 meters. In those kind of conditions, a boat is just about at the mercy of the sea and that's never good. So, as we topped off the tank and jerry cans with diesel and settled into our slip and new marina, we looked forward to what the original BEG had planned and assured would be a venture into tranquility.
Our driver, a nice Hindu man by the name of Kharti, picked us up the next morning and sped us away from the marina and the boat. Thank God! Freedom from the world of boats and yachties (no offense to either, of course). As moped after moped careened by us as break-neck speeds and we weaved through intersections with no traffic lights, I was wondering when we would get to that tranquility bit. We had a morning planned of temple viewing, lunch at a popular restaurant where we would feast on suckling pig, travel through the stone and wood-crafts districts, and then make our way up tho the highlands where yes, the "most delicious of all beverages" (see the movie "The Bucket List") would be consumed: Kopi Luwac coffee (coffee beans ingested by a civet cat, then collected by a dedicated and well, patient worker; and slow-roasted in an iron kettle over open fire). We watched the majority of that process and looked at a sleeping Luwac in a cage and sat there drinking our coffee at a table overlooking a misty, jungle valley. How did it taste? At a whopping three dollars a cup for Bali standards, I'd say it lives up to its reputation. Best coffee I've ever had. Not quite sure it's worth the 50 dollars or more a cup it will put you back in other time-zones.
As we made our way around the southern part of the island, stone temples adorned with ornately-carved good and bad spirits were aflock with worshipers and wedding ceremonies. Every village has three temples and every house is a temple in and of itself. As we were invited into our driver's open-aired house he explained that houses are ceremonial compounds where extended family live together and multiple offering sites are located magnetically as to their purpose. In the center, is a room that is used for to worship the souls of deceased family members. The smell of flower baskets lovingly placed at various places of worship in the compound mixed with burning incense. All of the afore-mentioned combined with that one cup of Kopi Luwac and I was starting to get into the tranquility mode.
Nightfall found ourselves checking into the former royal palace with pools of lotus flowers leading to the royal temple. I had never slept in a temple before nor bowed before a Queen. By the next morning, I could say neither anymore. We ate a healthy breakfast of fresh fruit and then decided to head to the monkey jungle, a place of reverence for the devilishly cunning macaque monkeys. Among the banyan trees and a thousand monkeys, I made the mistake of putting the bananas I purchased in the same pocket as my camera and ended up feeling the little hand of a crafty macaque yanking both out of my right pocket. For a few seconds we played tug-of-war, before he took off with all the bananas and I managed to hold onto my camera. Draw. The Skip learned quickly that once a macaque has stolen your bananas, those bananas are rightfully his or hers. Any attempt to recover purchased bananas will result in a gaping mouth displaying sharp teeth. Further attempt will more likely than not result in trip to hospital with one wondering why one fought with a monkey to retrieve bananas meant for a monkey. I stood there watching dad fight to get his bananas back from the monkey and wisely retreat upon the flash of teeth as people took pictures of the two. I wondered who was smarter.
We are headed to Cocos-Keeling and as always love and miss you all. Te amo, Merce.
"Brown-Eyed Girl" out...
Australia
Now that we finally have a little bit of signal to send and receive messages via this SSB and this service called Sailmail, I want to do a retro-blog about the beauty of the Northern Territory of Australia. In fact, to leave out a section regarding the times had there and the people met -- I would feel like I would have betrayed both. I wrote in an earlier blog that when I was in Queensland, the Aussies there are a bit like the good frontiersman of our western states, similar to the good folks I've met in Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho. The Aussies of the Northern Territory take that same independent spirit and connection to the land and multiple it by a factor of ten. These are the real Aussies, that live with the threat of drought, flood, venomous snakes, monster salt-water crocodiles that occasionally kill their brahman cattle and four or more times a year their kinfolk as well, and the logistical difficulties of the every-day life of living in a remote, yet beautiful region. This is the Australia I've wanted to breathe in, soak up, and relish for years. Kakudu National Park, the Adelaide river, Yellow Water river, and the lands surrounding did far from disappoint.
The trip up the Arnhem highway to Kakudu National park takes one at this time of year through some very dry scrub growth regions with billabongs (small water holes) that seem to dry before your very eyes. This is a positive, of course, to game-viewers like me who know that when you find the water in times like these, you find the animals. Dingos, water buffalo (feral and now being eliminated by the Aussie Fish and Game for the damage they do to the undergrowth), monster salt-water crocs, kangaroos, one dead eastern brown snake (now salted and frozen in the bench-freezer of the BEG), gouanas, pythons, and myriad bird species were observed, including the painted kingfisher.
Our first stop, very commercial but not too be missed, was the river tour of the Adelaide river aboard "The Adelaide River Queen" to see the famous jumping saltwater crocs. I'm not sure if feeding 17 foot crocodiles with chunks of pork attached to a line dangling from a pole which is lowered to the water and then quickly raised to tease the croc to propel itself out of the water is exactly a good way to keep Crocs from associating humans with food, but without doubt it has saved the population of crocs in this region. Crocs are now big money alive, rather than little money dead as their extinction was almost realized by over-hunting in the 1950's and 1960's. There is no doubt that the sound of the boat brings these bruisers to the boat. In fact, we watched these territorial creatures race each other to the boat to be the one to get their daily hand-out. If tours like these prevent the Australians from going on wild killing sprees any time someone is taken by one, then I'm all for them. The bottom line in Australia: Don't swim in freshwater or wade across streams at night determining if your rented 4x4 will make it across without being swept downstream (more on that later).
Next we headed to our cabins within Kakadu National Park and took several nice walks on site to their billabong where we witnessed a stand-off between a wallaby and a gouana, which is a large lizard native to Australia. Wallabies hopped around the grounds and fed on the more succulent green-grass being watered next to the swimming pool. For a sunset-vista we headed to a famous rock outcropping adorned with aboriginal art dating from 1,000-6,000 years of age. Paintings made from iron compounds and other organic material have weathered the ages and scenes depicting aborigines hunting crocodiles, kangaroos, and paying homage to "Lightning Man", who brings the rainy season, were there to teach life lessons. We even observed a positive imprint of a hand. As we scaled the hill, we reached the summit just as the sun was falling. Vibrant purples and oranges shined through clouds resting on the horizon and painted the land and made the iron rich rock out-croppings seem a little less harsh. The beauty of that sunset quickly faded and we made our way down the hill. Into the car we hopped, and my heart felt content with the prospects of what we may see crossing the road in the darkness of this frontier. Several snakes were spotted, but the one spotted by the Skip was the second highest on our list: the eastern brown. Unfortunately, it had been recently killed but we still approached it with great care. Mom is no fan of snakes, unlike Dad and me, and convincing her to let us take the snake back to room where we could properly skin and salt it and get it cooled down took some careful verbal maneuvering. It took Dad, some smooth talking, me whacking the snake with a stick several times and holding it, and Dad taking out an empty gas container (a way to detain the dead snake) which assured her that the dead snake would not be able to escape. As Dad proceeded to stuff the snake into the gas container, red and blue lights light up the night and a police truck pulled up and two bush cops jumped out with puzzled looks on their faces.
"Yeah, that's a bad one I reckon. Eastern Brown or King Brown from the looks of it. Not to be mucked with. Careful the Rangers don't see you with it. Have a nice night", the taller cop said giving us a bemused look as if he were thinking, "crazy Americans." Off they went and we still had the snake. I love the Aussies.
The next day found us on the Yellow river doing another boat tour. It had a truer feel to it than the Adelaide tour. Crocs were seen in great numbers and very close but they weren't the highlight of the trip. The guide's vast knowledge of the bird species we were abundantly seeing gave us more appreciation for this wild river ecosystem we were privileged enough to see for two glorious hours.
Back to that whole deal about not wading into rivers at night. Deciding how to make the most expeditious way back to Darwin, we were told of a shortcut that would easily save us "30 minutes" (cost us at least an hour) but it would be on a dirt road. We didn't mind that as we had a nice 4x4. We even spotted a dingo and two water buffalo and one very large snake that slithered off the road before we could jump out and see it. What we didn't expect to see about an hour down this "shortcut" was a river running through it (the South Alligator-known croc fatalities on it). So it was dark, we were at the point of no return, and I decided to jump out as Dad followed closely behind in the rental with high beams on and a plan of running a croc over if he saw a v making its way through the water. I tested the depth, my switch-blade in hand (because everyone knows how effective those are on 1,000 lb. beasts) as we both kept a look-out for Crocs. The water never got more than knee-deep but then again our reptile friends don't need much water to obscure themselves in the hunt. The river was quickly deemed passable and I gladly jumped back in.
In retro, we should have turned the vehicle around. We wouldn't be Metzes if we had. As always, love and miss you all. Te amo, Merce.
"Brown-Eyed Girl" out...
The trip up the Arnhem highway to Kakudu National park takes one at this time of year through some very dry scrub growth regions with billabongs (small water holes) that seem to dry before your very eyes. This is a positive, of course, to game-viewers like me who know that when you find the water in times like these, you find the animals. Dingos, water buffalo (feral and now being eliminated by the Aussie Fish and Game for the damage they do to the undergrowth), monster salt-water crocs, kangaroos, one dead eastern brown snake (now salted and frozen in the bench-freezer of the BEG), gouanas, pythons, and myriad bird species were observed, including the painted kingfisher.
Our first stop, very commercial but not too be missed, was the river tour of the Adelaide river aboard "The Adelaide River Queen" to see the famous jumping saltwater crocs. I'm not sure if feeding 17 foot crocodiles with chunks of pork attached to a line dangling from a pole which is lowered to the water and then quickly raised to tease the croc to propel itself out of the water is exactly a good way to keep Crocs from associating humans with food, but without doubt it has saved the population of crocs in this region. Crocs are now big money alive, rather than little money dead as their extinction was almost realized by over-hunting in the 1950's and 1960's. There is no doubt that the sound of the boat brings these bruisers to the boat. In fact, we watched these territorial creatures race each other to the boat to be the one to get their daily hand-out. If tours like these prevent the Australians from going on wild killing sprees any time someone is taken by one, then I'm all for them. The bottom line in Australia: Don't swim in freshwater or wade across streams at night determining if your rented 4x4 will make it across without being swept downstream (more on that later).
Next we headed to our cabins within Kakadu National Park and took several nice walks on site to their billabong where we witnessed a stand-off between a wallaby and a gouana, which is a large lizard native to Australia. Wallabies hopped around the grounds and fed on the more succulent green-grass being watered next to the swimming pool. For a sunset-vista we headed to a famous rock outcropping adorned with aboriginal art dating from 1,000-6,000 years of age. Paintings made from iron compounds and other organic material have weathered the ages and scenes depicting aborigines hunting crocodiles, kangaroos, and paying homage to "Lightning Man", who brings the rainy season, were there to teach life lessons. We even observed a positive imprint of a hand. As we scaled the hill, we reached the summit just as the sun was falling. Vibrant purples and oranges shined through clouds resting on the horizon and painted the land and made the iron rich rock out-croppings seem a little less harsh. The beauty of that sunset quickly faded and we made our way down the hill. Into the car we hopped, and my heart felt content with the prospects of what we may see crossing the road in the darkness of this frontier. Several snakes were spotted, but the one spotted by the Skip was the second highest on our list: the eastern brown. Unfortunately, it had been recently killed but we still approached it with great care. Mom is no fan of snakes, unlike Dad and me, and convincing her to let us take the snake back to room where we could properly skin and salt it and get it cooled down took some careful verbal maneuvering. It took Dad, some smooth talking, me whacking the snake with a stick several times and holding it, and Dad taking out an empty gas container (a way to detain the dead snake) which assured her that the dead snake would not be able to escape. As Dad proceeded to stuff the snake into the gas container, red and blue lights light up the night and a police truck pulled up and two bush cops jumped out with puzzled looks on their faces.
"Yeah, that's a bad one I reckon. Eastern Brown or King Brown from the looks of it. Not to be mucked with. Careful the Rangers don't see you with it. Have a nice night", the taller cop said giving us a bemused look as if he were thinking, "crazy Americans." Off they went and we still had the snake. I love the Aussies.
The next day found us on the Yellow river doing another boat tour. It had a truer feel to it than the Adelaide tour. Crocs were seen in great numbers and very close but they weren't the highlight of the trip. The guide's vast knowledge of the bird species we were abundantly seeing gave us more appreciation for this wild river ecosystem we were privileged enough to see for two glorious hours.
Back to that whole deal about not wading into rivers at night. Deciding how to make the most expeditious way back to Darwin, we were told of a shortcut that would easily save us "30 minutes" (cost us at least an hour) but it would be on a dirt road. We didn't mind that as we had a nice 4x4. We even spotted a dingo and two water buffalo and one very large snake that slithered off the road before we could jump out and see it. What we didn't expect to see about an hour down this "shortcut" was a river running through it (the South Alligator-known croc fatalities on it). So it was dark, we were at the point of no return, and I decided to jump out as Dad followed closely behind in the rental with high beams on and a plan of running a croc over if he saw a v making its way through the water. I tested the depth, my switch-blade in hand (because everyone knows how effective those are on 1,000 lb. beasts) as we both kept a look-out for Crocs. The water never got more than knee-deep but then again our reptile friends don't need much water to obscure themselves in the hunt. The river was quickly deemed passable and I gladly jumped back in.
In retro, we should have turned the vehicle around. We wouldn't be Metzes if we had. As always, love and miss you all. Te amo, Merce.
"Brown-Eyed Girl" out...
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