Beyond The Maple Tree

We decided to return to Bali because we found a great direct flight from Brisbane, it's on the way to South-East Asia, and we love Ubud.  

Originally, we thought we might visit some new places in Bali or Indonesia, but after spending a few days relaxing in Ubud, we decided to stay in Ubud longer to research and plan our trip and get up-to-date on our posts.  We don't normally plan much in advance, but with uncertainty around covid restrictions, visa constraints, and having specific tour/friend&family meetup dates to manage, we needed to be a bit more prepared for this trip.

Despite spending a lot of time in Ubud researching and planning, we still had a great time and wanted to highlight some of it here.

We again stayed at Green Field Hotel (one of our 2 usual/favourite spots in Ubud).  It has a really quiet setting, 2 relaxing and well-kept pools, a wonderful breakfast next to the rice fields.. we could not ask for more.

We are creatures of habit and although we tried a few different restaurants, we really frequented a select few:

• D’Gamma Warung: A super small local place (3 tables) in a small alley that serves delicious food at a really low price. We could order 1 appetizer, 2 vegetarian meals, and 2 fruit juices for about $12 CAD
• Kakiang bakery:  Really nice desserts - we liked the Milles-crepes, the Hokkaido Cheesetart, and Jamu Juice (tamarind+tumeric medicine drink)
• Cinema Paradiso: Small Movie Theatre where you can use part of the movie ticket price towards food.  The food is ordered and served in the theatre and is really good. We ended up seeing Amsterdam, The Women King and Triangle of Sadness. 
• Twist Ubud: A slightly pricier restaurant that serves really delicious curries, burgers, and drinks.

We also (finally) tried the Balinese Snake Fruit (yum!) and some local gelato.

Walking around town

Although our resort is quiet, relaxing, and has one of the best views of the rice fields, we did venture out on a few explorations around Ubud to see how much has changed since we were last here.  Walking along the streets of Ubud is still very noisy and nerve wracking with crazy scooter & car traffic, narrow roads, and little to no sidewalks.  That being said, if you manage to find your way to the smaller streets or go a bit outside of the city center, you can find some interesting and nice things to see.

Rice fields

Monkeys

We saw one monkey drinking water out of a dripping tap.  We thought it was pretty clever... until another monkey came along and actually knew how to turn the tap on (full blast)!

Doors

Campuhan Ridge Walk 

We had done this walk on out previous trips, however, this time the path was paved and the village at the end now has a new resort with awesome lounge chairs, chill music, and an amazing infinity pool with a beautiful Instagram view 😂. 

That ends the list of the fun, sunny experiences we had.  

Unlike our past trips, we actually experienced a LOT of very rainy days in Bali this time.  We normally don't post about the rainy days or when we are stuck inside sick (mainly because pictures of that wouldn't be very interesting/fun 😂), but it is inevitably part of travelling and we usually make the best of it getting a massage, trip-planning, tidying pictures, catching up on our blog posts and movies.  

Laron Swarm

One night, it actually rained so much that some of the other resorts flooded and lost power so the guests had to move over to our hotel.  

On the next evening following the rain, we had a crazy new experience... We first noticed that there were some unusually large (huge!) geckos out hunting on the walls of the open-air restaurant that we were eating dinner at. We assumed that particular restaurant just happened to have big geckos - we thought little of it and headed back to our hotel.  We saw a few more geckos than usual on our way through the resort - they are such fascinating critters to watch!  

Each evening, the hotel turns on all of the balcony lights so that guests can safely walk through the resort, to their rooms.  This evening, as we turned the corner to our room, we both froze at the sight of thousands.. felt like millions.. of 2 cm-long flying insects swarming the front balconies and stairwell of our entire building.. there were SOOO many of them - we've never seen anything like it.  It was shocking.. it reminded us of the bug-filled tunnel from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom!  Even though it's not something we will easily forget, we do wish that we had taken a video or pictures of the experience as it's hard to really describe what it was like to see, not to mention the chills/goosebumps you get from such an unexpected encounter 😂.  

Anyhow, we managed to sneak close enough to turn off the balcony light and went to reception to let them know what was happening at our building.  They said they would send someone over to clean up the bugs, so we just had to wait for a while before returning to our room and all was good.  Apparently these termite swarms happen every year after really big rain falls - they all take flight and swarm toward the lights to mate, then they all shed their wings and crawl out to the soil to start their colony.  The whole thing lasts a couple of hours and then just suddenly ends.  The only evidence that it ever happened is the huge mess of shed wings scattered all over the ground!

Regretfully we didn't take any videos or pictures of this (we were too much in shock?), but while waiting for it to end we did try to google to try to understand what was happening, and found this article about the Laron (aka Flying Termite) Swarms.

Normally we shop around for tours, but this time we decided to go with our hotel's recommendation for a downhill-cycling tour from Mount Batur.  Without knowing the details, we showed up at 8am and were taken by minivan to a mix of stops along the way to Mount Batur. Our first quick stop was at Tegallalang rice terraces, where we snapped a few pictures and hopped back in the van. 

During one of our walks around town, we met Shaya (Patricia).  She was promoting her new business idea that had just launched - a course on foraging and cooking food in Ubud.  Jen was always interested in trying a foraging course somewhere, so we decided to book it.  A few days later, we took an early morning car to her place ~30 min North of Ubud.  

Our day started with a nice breakfast consisting of bread, local fruits, and some homemade kombucha and teas from local plants that all had really distinctive tastes and colours.

After breakfast, Wayan performed a local blessing for us and we went out on our foraging walk/hike.  Since the course was brand new, we were the only ones in the group so we had a lot of flexibility to customize the day to our liking.  Our guides, Wayan and Ram, gave us lots of options for difficulty, pace, and location of the foraging hike.  We wanted to take the longer journey through the forests of Bali, so our hike lasted around 3 hours through various rice fields, village roads, and jungles.  

Rice fields

Jungle

Along the way, we learned about different types of rice, how it is grown/harvested, and how the different trees/herbs/plants are used locally for food, health, and various ailments.  We collected and tasted wild fruits (bananas with huge seeds, cacao pods, cashew fruits, wild strawberries, and snake fruit) and a bunch of veggies and herbs including hibiscus, elderflower, banana flower, pennywort, pakis (edible fiddlehead ferns), lemongrass, water spinach, daluman, and a bunch of other plants (that we forgot the names of). 

Eyedrops plant

Fruits of the cashew plant

Eating hibiscus flower

After returning to the house, we prepared the foraged plants for cooking.

The most interesting thing we made was a local drink called "Es Daluman".  It involved making coconut milk from scratch, by grating fresh coconut flesh and squeezing it with fresh water, and adding a chlorophyll-rich grass-jelly made simply by squishing Daluman leaves with fresh water until it turns dark green.  We then stirred in some palm sugar syrup to taste.  It was so interesting to see how simple it was to make fresh grass-jelly and coconut milk, and it was really neat the way the Daluman slime set itself into such a strange/interestingly textured jelly.

We made several simple yet delicious dishes, and then it was time to all sit together to eat!  All of the dishes were really delicious - it was impossible to pick a favourite.  Full, satisfied, and tired, it was time to head home.  Overall, we had a really excellent and memorable experience - it was such a fun day!

We spent some time exploring the city of Brisbane itself.  We took the train and ferry into the downtown area and walked along the nice river pathway, from the Teneriffe suburb, through the botanical gardens, over to Southbank beach.

Here are some fun signs we saw along the way

We also drove up to the top of mount Coot-Tha to see a view of the city.  Apparently the mountain's name came from 'ku-ta' (honey), because the aboriginals used to come to this mountain to collect honey that was produced by the native stingless bees.   We didn't even know there was such a thing as "stingless" bees.

One morning we also drove over to Wellington Point , where you can walk along the sand bar all the way to King Island, during low tide.

Robyn was kind enough to lend us her car during our stay, so we were able to drive to the Australia Zoo, about an hour North of Brisbane. This was the first time that Dom had to drive a manual car on the left side. All went well and we arrived at the zoo just in time for opening.

Dom thought that since he had already taken Jen to the Taronga Zoo in Sydney, we wouldn't have to the Australia Zoo.. but he was mistaken!  Jen insisted he specifically visit the Australia Zoo.  Shortly after arriving and seeing the animals, he understood why.

A few days before our visit, we had tried to book a red panda encounter online, but everything was fully booked for weeks. Robyn recommended we check with Customer Service as soon as we arrive in case there were any cancellations or openings available, so that was our first order of business.  

Lucky for us, they had space for 3, for the Cheetah photo session. This wasn't even an option on the website, so it was a pleasant surprise and we booked it.  We ended up being the only 2 people at the encounter with Lawrence, the cheetah, so we got to pet and spend extra time with him (and Jen was able to ask the keepers a million questions).

Our second order of business (after booking the Cheetah session) was to buy some "Roo Food" to go feed the wallabies and kangaroos before all of the other visitors arrived there.  This was so much fun - you enter the huge enclosure with all the cute wallabies and grey kangaroos, crouch down to hold out some food, and let them approach you.  They even let you pet them and they are so cute and soft!!  Later we found a second enclosure with Red Kangaroos, so we had more feeding and petting time with them.   

We also got to pet koalas!  Again, you walk through their enclosure where you can see lots of koalas up close - there are no barriers, so you can walk right up to the trees that they are sleeping in.  There is also always one koala with a keeper, that is available for you to walk up to and pet, while the other ones are having a rest. 

Before coming to the zoo, we had asked Robyn if she had binoculars for us to borrow and she was confused why we wanted them, but gave them to us anyways.  During our visit we understood that unlike at the Calgary and Taronga Zoos where the animals are so far away, here, you don't need binoculars at all.  The enclosures are designed in a way that you have such a unique opportunity to get really close and personal with the animals here. 

At the koala nursery, you can see mamma koalas with their super cute babies. This enclosure had walls to keep visitors from getting too close, but you can still get a really good view of the babies. We went multiple times and on one occasion, the babies were awake and moving around to eat.

Our last close encounter was with the lemurs. Here you cross over to Bindi's Island where the lemurs run around freely walk amongst the visitors and even through the playground for kids.  The island is quite big so at first we didn't see anything and thought we were in the wrong place, but eventually a bunch of lemurs decided to jump down from the trees to come check us out.

After that, we roamed the zoo randomly but made sure to stop and catch the tiger and crocodile shows.

Every animal enclosure has "rest areas" where the animals can rest and hide away from visitors, if they aren't feeling very social.  We got really lucky with our visit because almost all of the animals were outside and active.  We got some great views of: 

red pandas

binturongs

wombats

rhinos, meerkats, and giraffes

crocs

cassowaries, dingos, tasmanian devils, sea otters, water dragons, and more!

We finally had to leave the zoo because it was closing.. we were one of the last cars in the parking lot.  

We both had an absolute blast!  The great thing with the Australia Zoo is that they mainly only have rescued animals, so there's less variety but the enclosures are very well designed.  Most of their proceeds go toward helping the injured animals brought to their animal hospital, taking really good care of the animal in the zoo, and educating humans to help keep wild animals healthy and safe in their natural environments. 

We decided to fly up to Brisbane to visit our Auzzy friends for a couple of weeks.  

We stayed with Robyn and Feesh at the Tropical Resort.  We spent most of the time going for walks around their neighbourhood, lounging by the pool, doing some research to plan the next parts of our trip, and meeting up with friends at the weekend get-togethers that Robyn had planned.  We didn't realise that it had been 8 years since we were last here, so it was really awesome to see everyone again!

We also made some new friends, named Mike and Marg, who came to visit us each morning.  They are Australian Magpies, but their singing is so much more beautiful than the magpies we have back home.  Check out the video of Mike serenading Dom:

One night we decided to teach Robyn and Fish how to roll Sushi.  We weren't able to find any sushi mats at the local shops so we had to make our own using bamboo skewers and duct tape.  It worked out surprisingly well and they were both expert sushi chefs by the end :) 

We lucked out as there happened to be a lunar eclipse while we were in Brisbane and the skies were somewhat clear.  It was partly cloudy, but there were enough clear gaps to see the eclipse progress.  We attempted to take pictures with our iPhones but it didn't work so well.  Tanya and Csaba live a bit South of Brisbane and they have a telescope, so they were able to take these awesome pictures:

Tanya and Csaba were also kind enough to host us for an evening at their new home in Burleigh.  We stroll the beach, checked out the town, and of course, Jen got lots of much needed puppy play time with Iggy and Crosby!

Lots of love and thanks to Robyn and Fish for letting us crash at their place yet again.  It was so awesome to catch up and spend time with everyone after 8 years.  Hopefully it won't be such a long time until we see them all again :)

The Blue Mountains are located around 100km West of Sydney, 2 hours (~$15cad/person, return) by train. They are named that way because of the blue haze that is formed from eucalyptus oil in the air. 

We arrived at Leura station at around 11:00am, grabbed a coffee, and walked 25 minutes to the trail.  Just before reaching our destination, we were greeted by what we thought were some local "pigeons", but turned out to be really noisy cockatoos.  We were amazed to see how common these birds are around the Sydney area. 

We first headed West along the Prince Henry Cliff Walk to see Katoomba Falls and some viewpoints along Scenic World's Scenic Skyway.

Then we backtracked and walked further Eastbound, stopping at the Three Sister viewpoint for some lunch.

After lunch we continued East along the trail to catch the train back from Katoomba Station.  

On this section, we encountered a few areas where the trail was closed due to damage from the heavy rains and floods over the past few years. We had to detour off of the path and back on the road a few times along the way, but still had some great views. 

We took the train back at 16:00, stopped for some yummy Thai food for dinner, and then took it easy for the rest of the night.

We went to the Taronga Zoo which is located across the Sydney harbour. 

To get there, you have to ferry across to the island (~$13aud/person, return).  To get around Sydney, we had originally purchased Opal Cards with a minimum $20aud balance, but later discovered that you can easily tap on/off with normal credit cards and still get the same discounts/benefits of using the Opal Card.  Fortunately this ferry ride helped use up most of our remaining balance so we switched over to using credit cards after t

The Taronga Zoo starts at the top of a hill where you get a beautiful view of Sydney.

Bondi beach is one of the most iconic and popular beaches in Australia.  Lucky for us, it is also very close and accessible from Sydney using the local train and bus (for about $7aud/person, return).  We found out that there was a nice 6km coastal walk from Bondi Beach to Congee Beach, so we decided to hop on the the train from Kings Cross to Bondi Junction, to check it out.

Since it was a weekend, we thought there might be more people on the beach than usual, but we really underestimated how busy the  bus from Bondi Junction to Bondi Beach would be.  To skip the giant line-up, decided to take a different bus that dropped us off at Tamarama Beach instead, since it was a fairly short walk away. 

We walked up the coastal trail to first do some people watching at Bondi beach, and then backtracked to Tamarama again before continuing down to Coogee Beach.  It was a perfect sunny day, but we were shocked at how packed and crowded the coastal beach walk was! 

We eventually figured out that it was because there was a free international art exhibition that weekend, called Sculpture By The Sea.  

So, our "short" daytrip took a lot longer than we were expecting, but we lucked out overall because we really enjoyed seeing all of the art pieces along the way - they made the coastal walk so much more interesting!