We were now ready to join the Manta forces and take on a diving course, Dave’s intention was to do some basic pool skills and then a fun dive in the afternoon. Helen needed to do a refresher so we were together learning and remembering the skills needed to dive later on that day.

Our instructor Thomas was an ex school teacher from Germany living the dream on the Gili’s as a dive instructor. At around lunch time Dave was sucked into doing his Open Water, why not? Thomas had explained that he’d already done most of the skills in the pool…a good salesman but we both knew it would be well worth it. For the next few days Dave was fully on board with the diving and loving it!

Helen would mix in yoga and then diving and was equally enjoying being back to a zen place with the tropical fish below. Dave took to it like a pro and was coming up with around 60-70 bar of air after an hour of diving each time, he pretty much had one to one instruction the entire time which made the videos a little more bearable! Our last dive at Mirko’s Point was in our eyes the best, the coral was so colourful and mesmerising and we saw all kinds of fish, the list would be too long to write on here! Diving with Manta was an excellent experience for us, the prices are fair and with waters as warm as in the Gili’s it’s a really great place to start. Big up to Thomas too and congrats to Dave for now being a certified Open Water diver…WOOO!

For our last few days we enjoyed some more snorkeling, reading, chilling out and yoga along with frequent gatherings with our group of Gili Air friends. For us it was like having a one week holiday, we had loads of fun and could have easily stayed another week. After 7 nights our accommodation bill was around $140 with breakfast which at Chill Out Bar was again excellent. One thing we should mention is that the bungalows we rented were owned by Chill Out, they’re not the expensive air-con one’s but they have a lot of charm in their own right.

So after one week we were finally ready to leave, in fact we had to if we were to make our flight out the next day. We said our goodbyes to our lovely group of friends and were ready for the off. The prices with Ocean Star Express was again good (although they need to sort out their baggage situation), and at Padangbai our transfer to Legian was ready and waiting. We were packed into the front of a taxi van with little room to budge and it took around 90 minutes to reach Legian. We decided to stay in Legian mainly because of its location to the airport, and we didn’t want to stay in the heart of touristy Kuta. Once we’d realised that the Three Brother’s Inn was way above our budget we found the Sri Beach Inn, nothing really to recommend here but it was a cheap room for us to get our heads down for the night and the owner helped us out with a taxi pick up at 4am to get us to the airport.

On our last night in Bali we had a stroll along the busy and popular Legian Beach which was packed with surfers, holiday makers and umbrellas! We also found time for a 2 hour massage on JI Padma Utara pretty much opposite the Warung Yogya, where we enjoyed a recommended a foot reflexology and back massage for 150,000 rupees. It was fanastic, although the little paper undies that we had to wear didn’t too much for us other than to make us laugh!

We really enjoyed our time in Bali and think the main reason for this is that we didn’t follow the tourist trail too far into the wrong places. Obviously Ubud and the Gili’s attract tourists but just not as many as in the peak season and as in Kuta and a few of the other busier areas. Perhaps hitting it before peak season is the best time to go, lower rates, less people and it’s still pretty hot!

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f2.0, 18mm f4, 90mm Tele-Elmarit f2.8 & Olympus PEN, 17mm f2.8 & 100mm f2.8, Sony DSC-TX5, processed in Lightroom 3)

We left Padangbai at around 9am once we’d checked in and watched several other ferry and boat companies jet off packed to the rim with tourists and their bags. We were hoping that our boat wouldn’t be so rammed tight! We bought our tickets the night before from a guy operating on behalf of the Ocean Star Express who are one of the companies with International standards, we got a good deal with it being off-peak and paid 950,000 rupees for us both return and with a transfer to Legian at the end. This was an open ticket and so we would just need to reconfirm this when we wanted to leave.

The boat journey was smooth and took around 90 minutes, we sat next to Carryn from South Africa who then became one of our buddies for the week. When we got to Gili Air we grabbed our bags and decided to walk from the jetty to the main street, although on Gili there are no paved roads it’s all sand and people with quite a few donkey carts manoeuvring tourists and their goods around. We went straight to Manta Dive as Carryn had already pre-booked 10 dives and we knew we’d be able to leave our bags there whilst looking for accommodation ourselves. Behind Manta is Nina’s which is a good budget option at around 100 rs a night but we wanted a little more luxury for our Island stay. We checked out a few other options and then happened upon a small collection of newly built “Chillout Bungalows” set back from the beach and busy area. We loved them and chose the first on the left with an open bathroom and big thatched roof, we had our own seating area at the front and it was quite peaceful. For 200,000 a night we were happy with this place.

Once we’d settled into our Island life on Gili Air we took advantage of the good food and fresh fish on offer and before long we were booked onto a snorkel trip around the 3 islands to give us a taste of the shallow waters. It was 70,000 each for the snorkel trip  with the gear, although don’t expect anything too new! The trip was good in that we swam with turtles and got to have fun with our underwater camera, plus we saw the other Islands. Some snorkelling points we better than others and the lunch on Gili Meno was disappointing; we waited an hour for noodles and rice with veg and we were constantly pestered by hawkers!

Back on Gili Air we were starting to make friends and met up with Carryn who then introduced us to her new dive buddies, some of whom were related to a few of the people on the snorkelling trip so it was all starting to fall into place, our little Gili Air community. We also frequented the local Muslim Warung in the village which for 10-15,000 rs you’ll get a well packed veggie, squid, or chicken and rice delight topped off with roasted peanuts and coco-nut shavings.

Helen was also pretty excited at the prospect of attending some yoga classes once she’d noticed that there was a yoga school on the Island. H20 Yoga is not too far from where our bungalows were located and so it was a simple hop across the field or 3 minute walk from us. There are two yoga teachers at H20 at the moment, Natasha who is acting manager offers and Anusara approach and Gene a Vini-yoga style. Natasha also offers a free meditation class on Mondays and there is a teacher training program coming up sometime later this year. It’s a lovely yoga circle with some accommodation surrounding the deck and a cute kitten who by now will be nearly fully grown called Surya!

One thing we have failed to mention is that all three Islands are occupied by cats, and for some reason the ginger cat comes up top! There are no dogs on the Islands and so it’s a nice an easy life for them! We walked around the Island in about an hour but had plenty of stops along the way to catch the low golden sun, the east side of the Island is way more developed but its worth exploring the perimeter and the village within.

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f2.0, 18mm f4, 90mm Tele-Elmarit f2.8 & Olympus PEN, 17mm f2.8 & 100mm f2.8, Sony DSC-TX5 underwater camera, processed in Lightroom 3)

The first of January 2012! Happy New Year to all who read our blog, we really appreciate you! We didn’t start our new year with hangovers, nor did we go out the night before and party in busy Kaikoura. Instead we opted for a quiet start to 2012, we did enjoy a few drinks in the town including some generous free wine sampling, but decided to head back to our van to cosy up ready to see in the New Year together.

The main reason for us not going out and getting a little tipsy was that we had a 5.30am appointment with the Dusky Dolphins in the Pacific Ocean. Something we had pre-booked as we couldn’t get any other dates to do the swim and we wanted to fit it into our agenda before heading back to Christchurch. So up at 4.55am we were ready and willing by 5.20am at the Dolphin Encounter center located 5 minutes down the road. Checked in and grouped up we grabbed our wetsuits, flippers, hoods and snorkelling gear ready for a 20 minute video presentation of what to expect and a little bit of history on the area.

Kaikoura is on a rocky peninsula where the sea opens out to a deep canyon providing a rich  habitat for marine mammals and seabirds. The main reason for tourists to visit the area is to whale watch, and enjoy encountering albatross and dolphins amongst many other species. The town itself has lost any charm of being a quaint seaside village and has opened up to commercialisation in a big way with large pubs, a subway, supermarkets and eateries. Further down the main street towards the peninsula though it does still hold onto a more local feel and isn’t so condensed.

The Dolphin Encounter company have been operating tours in Kaikoura since 1989 and is ran by locals, they’re a friendly team, but it must be tough having to get up at 5am every day to run these tours. After our introduction we got a bus to the jetty located on the South Bay where 2 boats were ready to take us out to sea. There was quite a swell on the ocean waves and we had a bit of a bumpy journey heading out. After around 15-20 minutes we spotted our first group of dolphins but this was a small group so we continued further until there was a larger group for us to swim with. At the sound of the horn we all got into the chilly waters and swam out to the dolphins, it didn’t take long for us to have a few around us and so the silly noises began. We were encouraged to communicate and interact with the dolphins to keep them interested in us. They are really sociable creatures and so the more you play the longer they stay!

After the first swim we got back on the boat and found the main pod of dolphins, from this point on we enjoyed 2 further swims, with around 10-15 minutes in the water each time. It was a truly magical experience, they really are playful mammals and it’s really good fun being in the water with them. You can’t touch them or try to interfere but you can swim in circles with them and make eye contact. Unfortunately for Dave he suffered from some sea sickness which seemed to have a knock on effect on board.

When the swimming was over we were back on the boat and enjoyed watching the dolphins from the side of the boat. Here we could see them doing flips, jumps and a few were mating. We both loved the experience, even with Dave’s sick bucket accompanying him. Fortunately for Jess (our guide) she was used to coping with other people’s sea-sickness and was fully prepared.

We were out on the water for about an hour and a half with around 30-40 minutes in the water with the dolphins. Helen has had this experience before when she was here in 2009 and although the weather was better then, it was still a wonderful experience. She loved doing the encounter again. On the boat journey out and coming back we saw a lot of Albatross on the sea chilling out, taking off and flying. Some with a wing span of over 3.5m! We do feel that we have become a little geeky on the whole bird-watching front, but you don’t see this amount of marine life and seabirds every day so it was pretty exciting for us!

So this was the start to 2012 for us, swimming in the sea with the Dusky Dolphins…not bad! This is our last activity in New Zealand, and all of the adventurous, exhilarating things that we have done have been really worth while. (The Dolphin Encounter cost us each $170 NZD and there were roughly 12 people per boat)

After hot showers and some much needed food we were back in the van for her final long journey back to Christchurch. We were tired back at the South Brighton Holiday Park so we chilled out after an energetic spell on the trampoline and finished our evening with a walk along the beach to the New Brighton Pier, it was a beautiful evening.

Happy New Year Everybody!

Video and photos taken on a Sony DSC-TX5 underwater camera & an Olympus Pen with a 17mm f/2.8 pancake lens

We said goodbye to our time in Venice with one last stroll along the beach, packed up and thanks to Helen’s cousin; John we had a lift over to La Canada where her Aunt lives with husband Joe. So far it’s been a pretty easy ride for us so-called backpackers, but we’re pretty sure we’ll make up for this later on!

Jill and Joe live on the edge of the LA Forest, it’s a world apart from the metropolis that makes up downtown LA, Venice, Hollywood and so on. I think that’s partly why we’ve enjoyed staying here as much as we have because we’re not normally doing the tourist thing. So for the afternoon we just chilled out, got our bags sorted for the next trip ahead and did a little bit of planning. It’s around 10-15 degrees hotter where they live too so we were appreciative of the aircon and a nice cooling dip in the pool. We also had fun with our underwater Sony camera purchased in Thailand. We do feel like we’re on holiday right now! ha!

Later on we enjoyed a drive out to Pasadena via some rich homes and gardens, and a few scenic spots along the hill tops for good views over LA. We strolled around the streets of Pasadena which was built up just after the war and has since been modernised, it seems pretty upmarket with a more boutique-like feel to the place. We did enjoy a great Mexican meal at Mijares along with our first Margarita before heading back for an early night.

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f/2.0, Leica 90mm f/2.8, Zeiss 18mm f/4 ZM & Sony Cyber-shot DSC-TX5 processed in Lightroom 3)