Darwin to Bali to Darwin

It’s hard to come to grips with the fact that we’ve now spent 3 months on the road. On the one hand, when I was working I would have loved a 3 month holiday, which would have seemed like forever (I did take a 2 month sabbatical at one point which was absolutely amazing). On the other hand, upon writing this closer to the 4 month mark, I’ve only just stopped having dreams about work (about being in meetings, mainly, or rushing to meet a deadline), wondering how various projects are going, missing things about working life etc…all that has finally left me, and it is starting to feel now like I’m figuring out what life is without work.

Being with the same company for 12 years and being a workaholic meant that my life revolved around them – I lived life by their fiscal quarters, put a lot of heart into my work relationships, and of course was always busting my butt on projects and initiatives in the company’s best interest. My 12 years with them was challenging, ever-changing, and fun – and I loved it, honestly – but it’s also pretty refreshing to be released from it all, too.

The reason all of that comes to mind is that from Darwin, Nick and I were headed to Bali for a few days for my birthday. This was the first time in 12 years I was able to travel for fun around my birthday, which falls right in the middle of a bunch of quarterly and annual deadlines at my company, and while we’d always manage to go to dinner together, I’d usually end up putting in a ton of extra hours that week.

So needless to say, as we rolled into Darwin, we were both pretty excited to celebrate this momentous occasion! First stop was the famous Mindil Beach Sunset Markets, where all of Darwin seemingly gathers to hit up the market stalls selling everything: deep fried classic festival food, Asian cuisine, crepes, fresh juice, clothing, art, and even a guy selling whips. Everyone mingles, eats, drinks, watches the sunset, and checks out the live entertainment. Our final verdict – way more fun than working on PowerPoint presentations!

The next day, we buzzed around Darwin, seeing a few sights and doing a bit of shopping, before hopping on our midnight Jetstar flight over to Denpasar! (Booking cheap flights at the last minute doesn’t exactly give you appealing flight time options, but who cares, we’re on a vaca-ception! (Vacation within a vacation))

Bali is known for fairly cheap accomodation and we had found a decent deal on a private villa at a small resort in an area of Bali called Nusa Dua. We knew that we’d have a small private pool and breakfast included, but nothing really prepared us for how absolutely amazing this resort would be, especially when compared with camping in the bush for the last few months!!

To be honest, given the last minute nature, and what we were spending, our expectations for the villa were pretty low. Well, they were totally blown out of the water as we sleepily rolled into the resort around 1am local time (4am Darwin time)…

Our “villa” was actually two separate buildings, surrounded by a tall stone wall, frangipani trees, and tropical plants. The bedroom opened onto the pool, which was 1.5m deep and more than spacious enough for both of us to swim around without feeling crowded. The bathroom was secluded outdoors at the back, with both an outdoor and indoor shower. The toiletries smelled like cinnamon and were specially made for the resort.

Fruit and snacks were supplied, along with a small selection of complimentary soft drinks and beers, all refreshed daily.

And that complimentary breakfast? If you’re like me, you thought “hot buffet at best, muesli and pastries at worst”…turns out it was in-room, cooked to order, and you could have anything and as much as you wanted.

As tempting as it was to stay in our villa, swim, eat, and drink all day, we did do a little exploring. We were staying in the Nusa Dua area of southeast Bali (which itself is an island in Indonesia), but the party/popular area is on the other side, at the areas called Kuta and Seminyak. We took a taxi to Seminyak and bar-hopped our way north, unsurprisingly getting happier and more relaxed the farther we got.

We didn’t make it to our planned dinner destination, having filled up on cocktails and snacks, but neither of us was particularly fussed.

The next day we did a bit of exploring around our own neighbourhood, Nusa Dua, which is a quiet tourist village (meaning it’s got resorts, bars, and restaurants and not much else).

We also felt a little guilty about spending our entire Bali trip eating, drinking, and lounging by the pool, so we booked a cultural tour of Ubud for our last day, to visit the rice paddies, local markets, waterfalls, and temples…but unfortunately we both came down with food poisoning (almost positive it was some chicken satay that didn’t taste quite right but we both still ate…). Our last day in Bali was spent curled up in bed in the hotel, air conditioning on full blast, consuming nothing but Sprite, tea, fruit, and water…

Thankfully (we always look at the silver lining!) this happened when we were in a hotel, in a bed, able to sleep the day away, and with unlimited tea and drinks at or disposal, and not while we were in a hot and humid tent with limited groceries and needing to dig holes for toilets!!

After a day of trying to stay hydrated and recover quickly, we had another late flight back to Darwin which was absolutely miserable, but we got through it, and proceeded to spend another two full days cooped up in a hotel room in Darwin, in recovery (Nick had it worse than me unfortunately, luckily I was able to put my awesome nursing skills to work and he’s fully recovered now!).

After driving around our rental Toyota for the weekend, we were super pleased to have the Jeep back on Monday, and hit the road as soon as possible on Tuesday morning, this time back into the wilderness at Kakadu National Park!