THE WIZZARDS OF AUS

LEMBONGAN 

So, writing this sitting in the Sanghyang Bay restaurant with strong black coffee over looking the unloading area on Mushroom Bay beach, Lembongan. It’s a bit cloudy today but the bay is still beautiful, when the sun hits the ocean it turns a translucent blue the like of which I’ve seen nowhere other than in the Caribbean. In the distance the Volcano, whIch has had a “grumble” recently is wreathed in clouds, the very top of it’s cone appears above the cloud line every now and again.

The unloading’s an exercise in barely organised chaos as boats haul up from Bali and disgorge passengers, their luggage and all kinds of cargo, two huge plastic bags full of water and Koi carp is may favourite today, whilst yesterday we watched a dozen occupied bird cages come a-ashore.

A large yellow speedboat is packed with Chinese visitors, it seems as if at leat 10,000 of the little yellow folk are on board, you can almost sense the island tilting under their combined weight as a hapless guide, with a tiny yellow flag on a long stick, waves, whistles, shouts, implores attention while his charges pose for selfies draped across the life boats, laying in the surf, leaning on the boat which rocks precariously in the surf. Soon they’re bundled into a huge fleet of 10 seater tuk tuks and ferried off, presumably to pose for selfies, draped across idols, temples, laying in the surf while their guide whistles himself dry, then they’ll eat their own weight in seafood and back to the beach to put it all in reverse.

Lines of passengers are now wending out into the surf for the return journey, it’s every bit as entertaining as the unloading as bundles of luggage are carried out to the boats and folk negotiate the knee to waist high water in order to jump onto the back of the boats.

We’re staying in the Le Nusa Beach club. By day a destination for holiday makers who can enjoy, as do we, the infinity pool looking across the bay, the bar with frequent happy hours and restaurant. In the back of the resort is a private area for residents, a beautiful bird haunted garden, secluded and quiet. Or would be were it not for Kims screams (John's, edits Kim!) last night when we discover two huge spiders, one very alive on the wall and one very dead on my pillow. I go to reception for some help, it’s a really big spider and I’ve no idea what make it is.

“We will send someone straight away”

Cool, professional response, I’m made confident and return to the beach hut to await expert help doubtlessly equiped with a set of fully pro spider capturing equipment. After 10 minutes two very nervous blokes turn up.......one of them holds a plastic garden rake, it has a number of tines missing. They look at the spider from a very safe distance (without getting onto the deck) and with the air of an Arachnologist one looks at me and says....

“Very big..huh?” as he starts to sweat 

“No shit sherlock” I reply.

He approaches the dead one on my pillow, skirting the live one by at least 3 meters, .....he shakes the quilt,....the body twitches, Kim hits the ceiling and virtually shits herself on the way back down.

“Dead, Huh?” says David Attenbourgh.

He picks the dead one up in a tissue and we all go outside to face it’s bigger and living mate.

The two experts, visibly shaking, push each other forward, trying to use their pal as a human shield, while each hold the pole of the rake. A cursory swipe just makes the thing run, again Kim with the ceiling, shit thing. He whacks it and the spider falls in a ball looking a lot less threatening.

“If we’d known you were just going to kill it we could have hit it with a shoe”

They pick up the body having bashed it repeatedly with the rake to finish it off.

“We’ll come back tomorrow and lift the bed to make sure there aren’t more” they comfort...

Kim wants to move rooms, preferably to the Isle of Wight, but we bravely assemble the mosquito nets around us as tightly as we can and settle in for some sleep, where it not for the 4 rooms of New Zealand kids.

They are pissed, incoherent apart from every other word, which is fuck. They lurch between “loving you fucking guys” to “Fuck off I’ve always hated you, you fucking c*nt” for what seems like a couple of hours. One of them strips naked and gallivants around the garden. Seeing us he apologises.

“Fuck, sterm fuck shneerin pologise, fuckin never knew, the fuck, turmbre scrim fuckin tosser” he says.

“Yes, we know” we reply.

Another pokes his head around the deck divide.

“Fuckin’ need to pologise fer me fuckin’ mates, they’s all fuckin’ pissed”

At last they decide they’re hungry and want to set off looking for food, they can hardly walk,.......... fortunately, they all have mopeds.

The next morning they are all very quiet as they walk around with their bandaged, cut bruised legs and arms!

So, we’ve come to Lembongan which is a 40 minute speed boat from Sanur in Bali. It’s one of those paradise places with clear ocean and white sand beaches. We have 4 days to explore before we travel back to Bali and our friends Dave and Robyn Lynne. We’d planned to snorkel with manta rays but the weather has turned a little stormy leading to poor visbility and the place is pretty busy. Instead we hike across the island to a stunning bay and beachfront where we just chill with some cold beers. In the evening there’s a huge selection of restaurants to choose from most with ridiculously cheap, good food. If things clear tomorrow we’ll venture across to a neighbouring island for some more sight seeing.