FAMILY CHRISTMAS IN LOMBOK

10 January 2024

What a wonderful Christmas and New Year.

For a brief few days we managed to get a Christmas family get together – at the same place and time.  It wasn’t easy, like herding the legendary cats at times but the persistence of Ngozi paid off.  We all had a good time, it was relaxing, laid back and stress free, just what a holiday should be. 

Ngozi came out first mid-December, we stayed on the boat for a few days on the marina mooring.  It was hot, I had asked Ngozi to bring out a 12v fan from Burnsco in Auckland.  Unfortunately, she didn’t, we had a very hot few days on the boat.  I am sort of used to the heat now but Ngozi suffered until we moved ashore into an air conditioned room. 

Next out was Steven who turned up on December 18^th and then finally Jessica arrived on the 23^rd.  Unfortunately, Jessica only had a few days with us as she had to return to new Zealand for gigs she was booked into.  But we made the best of the time doing fun stuff.

Our first outing was to the wildlife park.  What a wonderful place, it exceeded all our expectations.  We had great interaction with the animals and the lunch served in the restaurant was superb.  We thought it was a bit expensive at first, but it proved to be excellent value for money.  The stars of the show were the young female Orang Utan and the elephants. We came away with some great memories.

Our next outing was a sail from Medana Marina just around the corner to Gili Aer.  We didn’t do any sailing, just motoring on a calm sea.  Gili Aer was great, its so quiet as there are no motorbikes on the island, just electric bikes, pedal bikes and horses.  Took a bit of getting used to, being in Indonesia without the constant noise of motorbikes.

We had Christmas lunch on Gili Aer, nothing great and more designed for transient tourists.  But we enjoyed our day and the few hours on the island before heading back on Truce to Medana Bay where cooled off in the luxury of air conditioned hotel rooms.

The following day we took a day trip to visit a waterfall and a visit to Sembalun village for lunch. 

Sembulan Village is situated at around 1,100 meters above sea level and is noticeably cooler and less humid than the coastal strip.  The village would be a nice place to chill out for a couple of days and luxuriate in the cooler climate.  There is a tremendous amount of farming going on all around, I suppose the fertile volcanic soil and climate make things grow well.  We saw all kinds of crops being grown including coffee, strawbwerries, onions and apples. 

After Christmas we swapped out Jessica for Stevens girlfriend, Felicia.  Then we had a New Years barbeque at Medana Bay to take us into the New year.  Now it is 2024 and time to formulate another plan.

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