We dragged ourselves away from Git Git Twin Waterfall by mid afternoon to go and get some lunch. As we wandered back up the path Ketut, our guide casually asked if we had a restaurant in mind. We did and told him which one it was. When we got to the carpark we paid him for his services and he thanked us, got on his motorbike and headed off.
A few minutes later when we arrived at our chosen restaurant, there was a smiling Ketut waiting at the door to usher us all inside. It was a very clever thing from this entrepreneurial young man as he managed to get a small commission that didn't affect us in any way, except to give us a bit of a smile.
The buffet at the Git Git Restaurant was looking a bit tired when we arrived so we were giving consideration to ordering off the menu. Sue then asked the waiter if the Buffet was due to be freshened up shortly to which he replied in the affirmative and headed off to the kitchen. Ten minutes later, fresh food was being piled into the trays and a lovely lunch was had by all.
It was after three when we finally decided to brave the cloud cover and head back over the mountain to Bangah. Most of the cloud had lifted so Jimmy and I gave the rally cars a fairly good workout on those very windy roads. It's a great feeling but when you glance at the speedo you find you're just not going that fast at all. It's a struggle to get above 40 ks, but then again the feeling is what we are after, not the reality.
We made it back to the house in the early evening and put our tired little ratbags to bed and began packing for the following weeks Bali Rally adventure.
The following morning was a bit earlier than usual for all of us and by 7.30am we were on our way back to Kuta.
We had arranged to meet some people we had met at the GVC and show them the Beringkit Markets in Mengwi. They were there and waiting at 8.30 so we all headed off for a wander. Anyone who has not yet been to Beringkit Market, I would recommend that you put it on a list of things to do one day. It's only open on Sunday and Wednesday with Sunday being the extremely busy day of the two. It has a Cattle Market, a Bird Market and a large three story building where you can buy just about anything you could ever need.
There are live cobras, dried Crocodile Pen*ses, gemstones, clothing, tools, musical instruments, you name it, it's there somewhere.
We could have spent the whole day there but we had another engagement in Sanur. Our mate Troy(Fatbastard/Yellowman) had invited our kids to one of his kids Birthday parties at the Paradise Plaza Suites in Sanur. This is a great hotel for families with the added advantage of having Camp Splash with all of its wonderful kiddie adornments that are not really meant for grown men to play on...especially really large ones ;-)
The kids hadn't been to Camp Splash for four years but the big ones remembered it well ‘Do you remember when you got stuck in the waterslide Dad?' ‘That'll be enough thanks kids'
The Paradise Plaza puts on a great kids party and everyone left well fed and exhausted.
While we were there I had managed to get Troy onto a Basketball court for the first time in his life and he quickly became addicted to getting that big ball in that little hole way up there. Our mate Wayan Ruda joined in as well and surprised everyone, including himself, with some very accurate if unconventional outside shooting.
The only drama for the day was myself slipping over on some wet stairs whilst carrying Tui as we left. My left forearm was still bruised from elbow to wrist five weeks later. The kid was Ok though and that's all I could think about as my lardass headed for the ground.
We headed out of Sanur with no idea where we were staying that night as we hadn't bothered to plan that far ahead. On the way over to Legian we got a phone call from David and Moira asking us to meet them at the Bali Cyber Café to have beers with the Bali Rally crew. Andretti, the Navigator and Harry Hack-Around the Hostage were all there to greet us.
The kids headed straight for the empty computer terminals to email their mates at school while we settled in for a great dinner and a few icy cold beers.
Eventually though, we needed to find a place to bed down and the kids all wanted to head for the Sri Ratu. They loved this place four years ago and we agreed with them making it unanimous.
We pulled in to the Sri Ratu to find a very excited staff all ready to hug and kiss the kids and welcome them back. The older four all remembered exactly where everything was and immediately started to head for the Bungalow Mawar. Unfortunately that one was booked but we were still able to get the Bungalow Bougainville. This place is a two bedroom, two bathroom bungalow with its own courtyard that fitted the bill quite nicely for us. All it took was a mattress on the floor of each room and the nine of us fitted in easily.
There are probably a few little issues with this bungalow that could be addressed to make it better, such as the old box type air cons, but at Rp350,000 a night for nine people it would be folly to complain too much.
The kids woke at 7.30 wanting breakfast when all we wanted was a sleep in. The older ones then headed themselves over to the kitchen and ordered breakfast for everyone. It was delivered to the verandah of our bungalow and was as wonderful, delicious and cheap as we had all remembered. The kids then wanted to have a swim but after twenty minutes in the small Sri Ratu pool they were making noises about going to the GVC, so off we went. During the course of the day I dropped into Brisbane Tailor to order a heap of board shorts. I paid a couple of bucks more per pair than I would at the markets but they were tailor-made to suit my rather ample girth and they are managing to hold it in nicely. I'm not sure why I ended up with 20 pairs, but they should do me for a while. The rest of the day was spent lazing around with the crew at Garden View and continued on into the evening until eventually Rae had to drive us home as the kids were tired and my body seemed to have strangely lost many of it's motor functions. Walking and talking had become a problem. ;-)
The following day was just another cruise like yesterday as we were saving ourselves for the evening. Tonight was Bali Rally's official scrutineering at Bali Cyber Café. It was supposed to be an evening of planning and goal setting for the rally, in reality it was just another good feed and a good p*ss-up. There were also a couple of wonderful promo shots of some of us boys cleaning the cars. Maybe you don't need to see these though. But if you're keen, just go to balirally.com and have a look.
RALLY DAY
We were woken at 3am by the wonderful sound of Chontelle vomiting. Within the hour, Jacqui had joined her and our Rally day was not looking too promising. By 6.30 I had made the decision to abandon the rally and let the crew carry on, Rae wouldn't hear of it though and insisted that I take Billy and Brittany and head off, she would then join us when the kids were well again.
I thought about this for five or six seconds before I said okay.
At 9am I joined the rally crew at Bali Cyber and once our Police escort arrived, it was ‘Game on'
From the moment we left our police escort took the rally to heart and gave it their all. Straight up Jln. Legian heading north, lights flashing, sirens wailing and arms out the window waving all the traffic aside. We cleared the Legian and Seminyak area in record time.
Once we got out onto a little bit of open road our escort decided to test our skills and took a few side roads where we could open the throttle a little. To this day I'm not really sure who had more fun, them or us. We worked our way up the back roads toward Mengwi before heading through Kediri and into Tabanan city. I had rung ahead to the escort vehicle letting them know that I would need an ATM before we cleared Tabanan. This was not only not a problem but turned into a highlight. As we came up the by-pass road leading into the city centre we were confronted by a line of traffic 250m long waiting at a set of lights. Our escort just pulled out into the on coming traffic waving them all off the road and led our six vehicles up through the set of lights where some of their police colleagues had stopped traffic in all directions and simply waved us through. They then pulled up in the main street of Tabanan where more policemen helped to guide traffic past our convoy while we all used the bank and ate ice-creams. The locals were cheering and waving at the dressed up cars and took to the spirit of the rally quite well.
After leaving Tabanan we headed out along the coast road toward Medewi and Negara. The drive out here has been described as slow, hot and boring. We found none of that to be true. There is a great deal to see along this route and I sincerely wish we had been going slow enough to see a bit more of it.
There seems to be a multitude of surf spots and plenty of budget accommodation along the way for those happy just to wing it and see where they end up.
I know I won't hesitate bringing the whole family out this way on an unplanned cruise just to see were we end up.
The revving and rampaging through the Mysterious West finally saw us end up at the turn off to the Medewi Beach Cottages. The decision was made to head down here for lunch and then see what transpires.
What transpired was a lovely lunch followed by a general agreement to check in, hit the pool and then hit the booze. What we did hit was a snag.
After checking in we all made our way to the pool bar and ordered another round of Binnies. The first problem here was that the bloke behind the pool bar was the Navigator and he quickly let us know that we had to order from the front bar, so we did.
A dozen mildly cold Bintangs turned up and a quick questioning (see Spanish Inquisition) revealed that we had rolled most of the cold stock, maybe eighteen stubbies, at lunch. These were the replacements that had been in since then.
No worries was the general consensus, we'll just have a bourbon or two while the beers get cold. ‘Sorry, we no have spirits' was the reply to that request.
Navigator screamed, Andretti had a mild coronary, I nervously chewed my left hand off, David swam to the bottom of the pool and refused to surface, Haaris laughed maniacally at the corner of the bar and Jimmy, well Jimmy just smiled.
An immediate crisis committee was formed and a driver was dispatched with our esky's to get as much ice as possible to cool as much beer as possible. In the meantime Jimmy just strolled away still smiling. I worried for his safety as being this far away from a supply of Bourbon can do strange things to a man.
Within minutes we had the pool bar up and running with esky's full of ice, lots of beer getting cold and a mild to cool one in our hands.
Then we saw Jimmy.
He was walking towards us from his room with an 1125ml bottle of Bourbon in his hand. He needn't have walked around the pool, at that point, in our eyes at least, he could have walked straight across.
We had a wonderful afternoon in the pool. The police escort became the lifeguards, after they were taught to swim that is, and Jimmy was elevated to an iconic status that he has held ever since.
The evening found us back at the restaurant once more for a great feed and the presentation of the first days trophies.
Not normally one to brag ;-) but I got the first Trophy. First vehicle to pass Car 01.
After dinner, all of the old fart types went to their rooms for the night leaving only ...well...me really, so I went and watched the Wallabies while the kids snored.
Not long after I got back to the room Brittany decided to go out in sympathy with her big sisters back in Legian. She managed to stain a few sheets and undies over the course of the night leaving me wishing that Rae would magically appear. No luck though, just had to clean it myself.
We checked out after an OK brekky the next morning and headed towards Negara. Again the escort boys decided that the best way to see a place like this was flat out all the way through. It seemed quite a good size town and looked clean enough. Certainly worth a longer look once my local language skills improve.
Through Negara and on to the Gilimanuk road we went with myself looking forward to seeing the ferry terminal. The coppers must have seen it before though and just turned right and headed along the north coastal road through the Bali Barat National Park.
Well, we only skirted the park but what we did see was quite lovely. There is quite a diversity of bushland and Jungle in this area not to mention one of the best roads on Bali. On some stretches we were comfortably cruising at about 100ks an hour with very little other traffic to be seen. The only problem with doing that speed on an island this size it that you are soon at your destination. Not always a good thing.
Our escort soon had us all parked at the dolphin statue in Lovina and wandering back towards Kakatua Restaurant. We had a great feed here plus Rae and the kids joined us from Legian which made my day much more enjoyable.
From here we headed down to the Bali Taman Hotel and checked in at the special rate that Davids manager Wayan had discussed with them.
The Deluxe rooms were at Rp200,000 each and the two bedroom suites were at Rp400,000. We found this place to be quite nice and Rae and I took the kids back there later in the trip and they gave the same rate when we mentioned Wayan Astawa from Pacung Indah.
Give it a try if you're heading past and see if you can get the same rate.
The evening at the Bali Taman was a bit less formal than the night before and everyone made their own way out for dinner at different restaurants.
By mid evening though David and Moira were back having drinks with Rae and I while the kids slept.
There seemed to be a disturbingly large amount of Long Island Teas being brought to our table and before long Moira had earned her first award of the Rally. The rest of the mob had come back and joined us and before too long Andretti and the Navigator awarded Moira with the ‘PFD'.
The ‘Pixxed Fall Down' would have to be described as the prestige award of the Bali Rally. Moira was a worthy winner and in reality could have won it several times that night.
BTW, a couple of the cars that went out for dinner were stopped and searched for drugs on the way back. It was no real stress for them just an inconvenience.
This was back in mid June so this nonsense about them targeting Aussies all of a sudden is just crap. One car was driven by an Aussie, one by a Singaporean. Haaris was searched a lot more thoroughly than Sue.
Just some food for thought.
Day 3 of the Rally was a bit of a cruise. We were heading up to the new bar for a bit of a ‘soft opening'. Since it wasn't that far to drive we had a free morning just doing as we liked. Some of us liked Hot Springs, some of us liked massage.
We hit the road for Candi Kuning at about 12.30pm and Rallied our way through Singaraja, past Git Git and up into the winding mountain roads. At this stage we managed to pick up some hangers onners that loved the way we were going about driving up the mountain and just simply tagged along.
Navigator decided that a test of passenger and driver skill would be fun and unrolled a large streamer out of the passenger window of Car 01. The other end of this streamer was then grabbed by the passenger in the second car at which time the Nav let his end go. The passenger in the third car then grabbed the free end when it came their way and so it went on down the line of seven cars. This all took place at about forty ks an hour on a winding mountain road.
I can assure that the passengers just didn't understand the lack of response from we drivers when they said things like' Speed Up' ‘Slow Down' ‘ Get a bit left' and ‘Keep your eye on the streamer dammit'
We were havin' fun, but we also knew the dangers of not watching the man in front.
Pit Stop time
‘Crackers Bar and Grill' Candi Kuning Markets, Bedugul
All the crew at the markets welcomed the Rally and we wandered in to find the staff ready to party and the beer bloody cold.
The place looked great and we were all rapt after knowing what it looked like when we bought the place a few months before. Rae and Moira both shed a little tear when they saw the place but David and I suspect that was because they knew what we had spent, nothing sentimental at all.
We stayed for a couple of hours, made some slightly inebriated speeches, spilt beer on all the new bars, told a few great lies and then left.
Our next stop was the Pacung Indah where David and Moira had organised a wonderful evening of entertainment that included a Joged Bumbung Dance show backed up by a great Gamelan band that rocks their show up with some way cool chants. We all got involved in the show in some way, whether we wanted to or not, and had a magnificent feed that is typical of their hospitality.
Most of the crew spent the night at Pacung Indah whilst Rae and I ferried our sleeping babes the short drive back to our house for the evening.
A good nights sleep was required as tomorrow we had to make a sprint to the finish line back at the Bali Cyber Café.
The next bit will come a bit quicker...I promise
Only 41 days to go
Maybe I should just quit work until I finish it ;-)
CBE
Cracker ;-)