After a few days in Nusa Dua, Bali (which we did not like too much), we headed over to the Northern Territory of Australia. We were quite undecided if we wanted to include Australia in our travels or not. Cost of living is easily triple of what we need in SE Asia and we were not looking for another long flight. A bit of research later we figured out that the flight from Denpasar (Bali) to Darwin Australia was less than 3h and we decided to head Down Under.

So far we are loving Australia! It is very relaxing to be back in a more western environment where the kids are not treated as attractions and where we can easily get around and everything is well organized 😊.

The first 5 days in Darwin we rented a large apartment in the centre and enjoyed preparing our own food again after 6 weeks of eating out. We spent our days wandering around the waterfront, shopping streets and markets and also visited the WWII tunnels, the Royal Flying Doctors Service museum and the botanical gardens.

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From Darwin we rented a small car and headed off to Kakadu and Litchfield National Park. We stayed one night each at different accomodations (usually a really small family room) and at our first hotel had lots of kangaroos jumping around the premises. In Kakadu we enjoyed a wetlands cruise where we came across many birds and bats and the dangerous saltwater crocodiles. We climbed some pretty cool rocks in Ubirr to see the famous indigenous rock art and enjoyed the numerous billabongs, viewing platforms and short hikes. October is the end of the dry season in the Norther Territory and we were just in the build up to the wet season, which starts in November. This means it was HOT. During the day we easily reached 40 degrees and even at night it did not go below 30 degrees. Luckily the visitors centres have airconditioning so we spent the hottest part of the days learning about the aboriginal culture and the local flora and fauna. Litchfield was a great end of the trip. We admired the huge termite mounds, which are created by millions of termites. These little animals play an important role in the ecosystem by processing things like greass or dead leaves. In most parts of the world this is done by herbivores like cattle or giraffes. Besides the termite mounds Litchfield National Park also offers great opportunities for swimming in the natural pools created by waterfalls. With the heat we gladly took advantage of that and hopped into a few of them. What a great way to cool off after a hike.

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16-30 September we spent on Lombok. We were looking for a place to take it easy for a few weeks. Lombok is still very undeveloped touristically so we were able to see much more of the traditional ways of living that in Bali.

We stayed in Senggigi, one of the two “hot spots” on Lombok. However, a hotspot in Lombok is not comparable to for example Bali. After the earthquake in summer 2018 not many tourists have found their way to the island, so we had plenty of space to ourselves at all beaches and our hotel.

Our hotel was made up of 17 individually designed houses surrounded by a lush garden with mangos, bananas, pineapples, papaya, aloe vera and coconuts. Just 200m from our apartment was the local beach. When we say local we mean really local: not a single tourist or souvernior shop but rather free roaming cows, small (very local) food stalls, and wooden huts where people lived.

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Twice we rented a car plus driver for a day to explore the North and South of Lombok. Both times we saw many things just by looking out of the window: rice, tobacco, vegetable fields all harvested by hand, water buffalo, small villages, traditional weddings and many things more…. Our first trip took us to a weaving factory and cultural village, followed by half a day at the beautiful beach Tanjung Aan close to Kuta. On our second trip we went to the North of Lombok. We first checked out the monkeys that roam the streets along the way and then went on a 30min walk through the Jungle to the Sendang Gile and Air Terjun Tiu Kelep waterfalls close to the active volcano Rinjani. After each trip we needed a few hours/days of rest just to absorb all the impressions we got.

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Most days we took it easy and went for short walks around our hotel, or visited the daily market where you can buy anything from tropical fruits and vegetables to meat or live animals to toys, etc. The European health authorities would definitely close this market considering raw chicken is offered without cooling at 32 degrees.

The kids were an absolute attraction to all locals and other tourists during our stay. Levin loved the attention and enjoyed giving high fives, telling people his name or posing for pictures. His absolute highlight was going on daily scooter trips with the hotel waiter to buy mangos (and visit the beach and cruise around).

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